Happy Gay Pride?

So this post is going to sound a little self-loathing, but if it wasn’t then it wouldn’t be a post by me, now would it?

It’s National Gay Pride Month (yes the homosexuals get to celebrate all things Gay in the month of June (May would have made that rhyme…why didn’t some other homo on the planning committee think of that?)

The culmination of the month-long celebration in New York is the Pride March down 5th Avenue in Manhattan. It takes place on the last Sunday of the month.

In the beginning I was all excited to celebrate “Pride”. I’d be decked out in my rainbow pride jewelry and waving my rainbow flag as I cheered along with the other homosexuals in the streets.

But other years I have boycotted the March. One year I worked out at the Gym on 23rd and 8th Ave. in Chelsea – it’s has a predominantly gay clientele, so I usually avoided it. But that day it was completely empty and was part of my silent protest.

So why would I protest a March (aka a parade) that celebrates diversity and promotes the “Pro-Gay Agenda”?

For Starters, I just don’t get parades in general. As I always say about the Puerto Rican Day Parade, “If they love PR so much then why don’t you live there?”

The Gay Pride March is really just a freak show. It opens with Dykes on Bikes, features every drag queen and tranny in the city and a host of floats with hot shirtless boys. Oh ok, there are some “special” touches like the Moment of Silence for the people lost to AIDS and some political activism groups are represented fighting causes like the ever popular “Pro-Gay Marriage”.

What I hate is that 25 plus years later we are still dealing with hate crimes (Kevin Aviance was beaten up just last week), people in the closet, AIDS and the anti-gay marriage agenda proposed by our very own President. So what has this March really helped to change?

The media still doesn’t get it either. I know pictures of people holding banners in support of gay-unions doesn’t sell news papers and that photos of shirtless lesbians on motorcycles and messy men in drag does. But that’s not my life. Nor the image I want my parents and friends to have of my “Life Style” – as my Mom likes to call it.

So what am I trying to say here? I wish for everyone to just get along, or at least tolerate one another. I long for the day when people can marry who they want, people can live freely and openly and we can stop marching for a “cause”.

I live my life as an open book. But I don’t feel the need to scream down the street “Hey, I am a homosexual!” However, I do take every chance I can get to show the world that I am just like everyone else: I want to live the American Dream, find someone to love and love me, and have the freedoms that we are all supposedly guaranteed by the Constitution.

Ok, I’ll come down from my soap box now.