Wednesday, June 26, 2013
I wrote a five part series and posted them on Facebook this year to commemorative Gay Pride and Gay History. Day 3
As PRIDE WEEK continues, an ordinary day becomes extraordinary in real time.
Today’s dramatic rulings by the United States Supreme Court makes today, June 26, 2013, a monumental milestone in the historic chronology of the Gay Rights Movement.
But every social change comes at a cost, and so as we celebrate the legal victories achieved today and the expansion of rights, equality and love, least we not forgot the heroes who are not here to see today or to march and dance during a Pride Parade/Party this weekend.
Pause for just a moment and think of the 600,000+ who have died here in this country from AIDS since the Stonewall Riots in 1969, a disease that stigmatized and yet rallied the gay rights movement. Think about Matthew Shepard, murdered in 1998 in an anti gay crime. Remember all the children who were bullied, and the private unknown, ordinary men and women who shamefully ended their own lives in fear of being different, or even just lived quietly in their own private way.
Think about the leaders like Harvey Milk who stood up in what he believed and was shot down or Jeanne Manford, who marched with her son in 1972 in a gay parade and later founded PFLAG and building straight allies across the world.
Think of all the lost talent, the lost creativity, the lost leadership and the lost friends and family members, who aren’t here today because they loved the wrong way and make sure to hold these heroes close to your soul and quietly thank them this week of PRIDE.
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