NY Gay Pride Weekend

[Katy]

Quote:
Gay pride is important for young gay people. Suicide rate is much higher for gay teens, they need to see they are not freaks. A member here just lost a friend for that reason.

Have to say I agree with what redroosta said.....I understand that it's important for a young gay person to know and feel that they aren't alone. However to a lot of people who have anti-gay feelings all the parades and shows of gay pride do nothing but make them even more anti-gay. I'm not anti-gay but I have a son who is very much so and all the parades do are make his anti feelings worse. His thoughts on it are if the LGBTs of the world want to be accepted and fit in why keep pointing out their differences? I do agree with him on that point.

 

[pdsavage]

Quote:
Gay pride is important for young gay people. Suicide rate is much higher for gay teens, they need to see they are not freaks. A member here just lost a friend for that reason.

Have to say I agree with what redroosta said.....I understand that it's important for a young gay person to know and feel that they aren't alone. However to a lot of people who have anti-gay feelings all the parades and shows of gay pride do nothing but make them even more anti-gay. I'm not anti-gay but I have a son who is very much so and all the parades do are make his anti feelings worse. His thoughts on it are if the LGBTs of the world want to be accepted and fit in why keep pointing out their differences? I do agree with him on that point.

Whats wrong with being diffrent?Are we not sending mixed signals be an individual take pride in who you are ect ect. Yet on the other hand its everyone else should fit in to the norm and just conform to what is "normal".

I would rather be hated for who I am then loved for who im not....

 

[mom'sfolly]

I think if you look up the origins of things like St Patrick's Day Parade, you would see parallels.

The original St. Patrick's Day Parade helped the Irish celebrate things that were actually illegal at the time....speaking Irish, and wearing green among them. This parade has waxed and waned with the perception of Irish people in the US. Now it is a beloved relict of an earlier time. I'm sure there were times when flaunting Irish pride angered people in this country, after all the Irish were perceived as lower class trash. That doesn't mean that the attitude towards Irish pride was alright, even if it might have been held by the majority of people at the time.

The whole "I don't like it when they flaunt it" idea isn't new, and it isn't anything except rank prejudice.

 

[RoeDylanda]

While I'm happy to see things changing, it is still the case that most gay adults were raised with the idea that homosexuality was at best something to be hidden. I'm not that old, and when I was growing up the absolute worst name that a person could be called was a gay slur. The pride parade is a great way for so many people raised with shame, secrecy, and self-loathing to say, No, that's wrong, This is who I am and IT'S OKAY. Maybe even GREAT!

I only wish my beloved great-aunt, who suffered the taunts and shaming from my family for 70 years, could have lived to see this.

 

[EmtheFishLady]

Quote:
Yes...I know. It really is a disease. I can't help myself.

if it makes you feel better, I'm this insufferable in real life too.




Personally I love the Pride Parades. I think if nothing else, it's a really fun celebration. People that are bothered by it would do well to look away.

 

[Katy]

Quote:
Have to say I agree with what redroosta said.....I understand that it's important for a young gay person to know and feel that they aren't alone. However to a lot of people who have anti-gay feelings all the parades and shows of gay pride do nothing but make them even more anti-gay. I'm not anti-gay but I have a son who is very much so and all the parades do are make his anti feelings worse. His thoughts on it are if the LGBTs of the world want to be accepted and fit in why keep pointing out their differences? I do agree with him on that point.

Whats wrong with being diffrent?Are we not sending mixed signals be an individual take pride in who you are ect ect. Yet on the other hand its everyone else should fit in to the norm and just conform to what is "normal".

I would rather be hated for who I am then loved for who im not....

There's nothing wrong with being different.....we're all different in one way or another. I know what I want to say, but getting it to come out right is kind of hard.....

Everyone wants to be accepted for who they are and it would certainly be a much calmer more peaceful earth if everyone could do that.

I don't think there's any such thing as normal, but isn't what everyone wants whether they're straight or gay, tall or short, fat or thin, to be able to fit in with everyone else without feeling like they have to make a statement about who they are and justify it?

I don't know....it just seems to me that by some (not all) people's actions it only makes the rift bigger. I'm not sure marching thru the streets in a gay pride parade really accomplishes any narrowing of that rift.

 

[cupman]

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[Inkheart]

I think the parades are more to show unity in my opinion

 

[cupman]

Quote:
I gotta wonder about comments like this. Yeah, being born isn't exactly something to be proud of but how many times are people treated poorly because of the way they were born? How often do people try to shame others for the way they were born? A lot, and it's not just for gays. Look at Martin Luther King Jr. Should he have just taken a back burner response to the whole civil rights thing and not gone on the streets and shown his pride and sent his message? The parades are what? once a year? they are also optional. I often hear the phrase that gays are "shoving their agenda down our throats" what agenda? equality? I'd say that's a worthwhile agenda. The fact is you can't turn on the t.v., radio, internet, or anything really without seeing sex shoved in our faces for marketing purposes but a couple dudes dress up in pink and march down the streets and you're having a cow?

 

[NGT ANGL]

What a wonderful thread - I am sorry I just saw it but I hope the OP had a wonderful time at the parade! I have many gay, lesbian and bi and transgender friends.....my best and most long-time (35+ years) friend in the world is a lesbian. I just don't have words to describe how happy in my heart I am that the world has and is becoming a more accepting place for her and her partner, and all others...still have a long way to go but the wheels of change are in motion and that is the most important thing in my opinion....

I think the most heartwrenching thing I have ever experienced happened to a woman that I worked with for years, and greatly loved and respected......her name was Billie and she was always the happiest, most up-beat and positive person. She was physically a man but lived her entire life as a woman in her dress (she loved colorful accent head scarves/headbands and wore them daily!), actions, etc. -it was only much later after I met her that I found out that she was physically a man...When she passed away, I attended her funeral. Her family had been so unaccepting of her, as she lived her life, that in death her family had her laid out dressed as a man - in a mans suit and without the wig she always wore...It really bothered me but in thinking about it, I could just hear her in her kind, loving and tolerant way and voice telling me not to be upset for her because people "just are who they are", which was a phrase I heard her speak many times over the years of our friendship....She passed many years ago, but I miss her smile and her humanity to this day...