Is Gay Pride Necessary?

In 1977, the crowd total reached 7000, and a highlight of the defiant post-parade gathering on Boston Common was a man burning his insurance policy, his Harvard diploma, and a Bible.

It was a tumultuous time. The parade took place just 12 days after Save Our Children leader Anita Bryant reached her zenith as a political figure, persuading voters in Dade County, Florida, to repeal a gay-rights law. Almost immediately after the Bryant victory, California gubernatorial candidate and Bryant ally John Briggs filed state legislation banning homosexuals from teaching in public schools. In Massachusetts, meanwhile, the State Senate had passed a gay-rights bill just five days before the parade (but it would take another dozen years for it to become law).

Gay and lesbian activists in Boston must have felt a kind of whiplash from the contrary political currents. Yet they were certain of one thing: if they were going to have any chance of stalling the newly energized anti-gay movement, gays and lesbians had to become more visible. To win rights, the first step is to be seen.

That was especially clear in the disastrous Dade County campaign. Gay business leaders urged gay and lesbian activists to keep away from Florida and instead let straight liberal politicians like San Francisco Assemblyman Willie Brown appeal to the voters. The result was that television viewers regularly saw Bryant leading grassroots supporters in patriotic chants, but they rarely saw gays and lesbians speaking out for themselves.

After the loss came a number of gay-rights demonstrations -- in San Francisco, New York, and Denver -- but also violence. In San Francisco, gay bashing increased sharply, culminating in the brutal murder of a gay man and the beating of his lover by a gang of youths yelling "Faggot, faggot!"

Times have changed. From 7000 participants in 1977, the parade hit 120,000 in 1995. On June 8, this year's co-chairs are hoping for a record 150,000 -- more than a quarter of the city's total population. In 1971, the Boston Globe summarized the first Pride march in eight paragraphs on page 20, under a news-briefs column and sandwiched between Jordan Marsh ads. In 1980, the Globe finally put Gay Pride on its front page; ever since, the story has appeared on either the front page or the front of the Metro section.

In fact, Gay Pride has in all likelihood maxed out in Boston. Not only is there a finite number of gays and lesbians in the area, but there are now Pride marches across New England, reflecting a newfound comfort with coming out in smaller cities and towns. (Last year, there were marches in Cape Cod, Portland, Hartford, and Worcester, among others.) And Pride is no longer the only holiday on the queer calendar, thanks to National Coming Out Day and Gay and Lesbian History Month, both in October. In Boston, gay dollars and organizing power also go toward the annual OutWrite literary conference; the Human Rights Campaign's election-season fundraising dinner; AIDS Action Committee's massive AIDS Pledge Walk (held the Sunday before Pride) and Dance-a-Thon; and dozens of smaller conferences, benefits, and arts festivals.

Indeed, with all this activity, the ACT UP chant "We're here, we're queer, get used to it" now seems rather quaint. Visibility no longer seems a life-and-death issue, as it did in the wake of Bryant's victory. Look at the cultural landscape in 1996: The Birdcage is the most popular movie of the year; k.d. lang and Melissa Etheridge are on the covers of national music magazines; Tower Records stocks gay porno videos a few aisles down from the Disney flicks; and same-sex marriage is a hot topic on talk shows and on the campaign trail (it came up in the first debate between Senator John Kerry and his challenger, Governor William Weld, a few weeks ago).

If mere visibility is no longer an imperative, what about a more specific political program? Well, don't expect a Queer Contract with America to be unveiled at Gay Pride. For one thing, the Gay Pride Committee in Boston can't do any political lobbying because of its non-profit 501C3 tax status. And it's not clear what 150,000 gays and lesbians would rally for, anyway. Massachusetts already has a gay-rights law, and Boston's representatives in Congress don't need to be persuaded to support a federal version. The AIDS Pledge Walk, held the Sunday before Pride, is a better platform to support the rights of HIV-positive people and to call for more resources to fight the disease. As for same-sex marriage, the Gay Pride Committee is planning a symbolic "commitment ceremony" before the parade, but it doesn't mean official support for what many queer activists still call a "patriarchal" institution. ("We can educate but not endorse," says new co-chair Sabrina Taylor.)

If Pride has a message, it's likely to be vague opposition to Buchananism and the religious right, which has almost no adherents in Boston anyway. (In another example of preaching to the choir, the National Organization for Women last month organized a "Fight the Right" march in San Francisco, of all places. NOW predicted a turnout of 100,000; the Park Service counted 13,000.)

So it's no wonder Gay Pride in Boston has lost some of its energy. At one point, there was a rumor the parade wouldn't come off this year -- several Pride Committee members resigned, and there were suggestions of mismanagement in the wake of last year's parade -- but the mood in the gay community was more one of embarrassment than of fear or panic. Many of my contemporaries, gay men in their late 20s and 30s, have stopped making a big deal about the annual event. We can't help but ask ourselves, "Is Gay Pride necessary?" And we wonder what to say to straight acquaintances who glimpse the parade on TV and ask, "What exactly are you marching for?"

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