- June 2023
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- October 2022
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Image: FacebookWhen the Princeton football team hosts Brown this Friday night, the New Jersey Gay Men's Choir will sing the national anthem. Princeton players will sport Pride stickers on their helmets. Mason Darrow, class of '17, who came out as gay while playing at Princeton, will serve as an honorary captain.
I expect the players will handle this official Pride Night with grace, but I also think there will be an excess of manly grunts.
- July 2022
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- June 2022
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Europe saw the very worst and the very best of the Pride experience yesterday.
In Norway, a gunman killed two people and wounded 21 at a gay bar in the capital city of Oslo. The alleged shooter was a 42-year-old Norwegian citizen of Iranian origin. He's believed to be a radicalized Islamist with a history of mental illness, and had been on authorities' radar since 2015.
Apparently he fell plum off.
On the advice of police, the Pride parade was cancelled. But several thousand people marched spontaneously, waving rainbow flags and chanting in English, "We're here, we're queer, we won't disappear."
Kudos to them for their defiance. As to chanting in English, perhaps the sentiment isn't as catchy in Norwegian.
The prime minister and members of the royal family laid roses near the bar. Crown Prince Haakon told reporters, "We must protect the right in Norway to love whomever we want."
I'm an anti-royalist, but I feel a sudden urge to curtsy.
Over in the Polish capital city of Warsaw, thousands marched in the Equality Parade, reportedly the largest queer event in central Europe. Joining the Polish paraders were hundreds of Ukrainians, representing LGBTQ organizations from around that besieged nation.
The joint Pride was a marvelous show of queer solidarity across borders—and a reminder of what will happen to the Ukrainian LGBTQ community if the Kremlin wins this war.
Pride was born of struggle years ago in New York City. In Europe in 2022, there's still plenty of struggle to be had. If you attended a Pride this month and your greatest difficulty was choosing an outfit, please keep a thought for our compatriots, abroad and here in the States. We all hope for the day when, in every part of the world, a Pride struggle means nothing more taxing than trying to avoid your ex.
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Image: FacebookI can't call it a Pride miracle, but it definitely qualifies as a Pride surprise.
My brother and his wife, while supportive of me, have always been reticent to take on the role of ally to the queer community. Yesterday my sister-in-law, who works for Bank of America, sent me a photo of the two of them at a Pride in New Hampshire, wearing rainbow Bank of America t-shirts.
You could've knocked me over with a deposit slip.
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Today is the sixth anniversary of the Pulse nightclub massacre. Yesterday authorities found 31 Patriot Front members crowded into a U-Haul near a Pride event in Idaho.
Some LGBTQ folks will understandably argue that we should start packing heat. But I still believe it's only lesbians who should be packing, and that has nothing to do with guns.
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- May 2022
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Image by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay
It's Pride Eve, the night Santa Claus drops his balls in Times Square.
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Image: Lane BryantBefore the internet changed shopping, it seemed that every mall in America had a Lane Bryant, the store aimed at women of generous proportions. I now know that Lane Bryant is still around, and striving to be relevant.
How do I know this? I just received a Lane Bryant press release, trumpeting its "2022 Pride collection." A digital ad campaign features four store employees who are queer or allies modeling the goods. Also, Lane Bryant will donate to GLSEN, and apparently has been doing so since 2018.
Yes, it's tempting to mock the company for flogging rainbow bras just to hitch a ride on the Pride gravy train. Yes, it'd be easy to criticize Lane Bryant for being part of the corporate takeover of Pride.
But I choose not to. Especially in a period of anti-LGBTQ backlash, I'm happy to see such a Middle American company take our side.
So, glad you're joining us, Lane Bryant, you veteran of the mall era. And bring RadioShack and Orange Julius with you.
- June 2021
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Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay
Hot, Hot, Hot
Here in Seattle today we reached an all-time record temperature of 104. If Seattle Pride hadn't been virtual, oodles of twinks in designer underwear would've frolicked in the Seattle Center's enormous fountain . . . and hordes of heat-crazed older lesbians in sports bras would've mowed them down to get at the water.
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Photo: Facebook
Pride in the Past
This is so cool.
The White House has partnered with the Smithsonian for a Pride-month exhibit. The White House's Ground Floor Corridor, lit up in rainbow colors for the first time, presents LGBTQ+ history, like Stonewall, the AIDS epidemic, Harvey Milk and Marsha P. Johnson.
The exhibit also goes farther back in time, and fittingly for the location, tells of Rose Cleveland, who served as White House hostess for her brother, President Grover Cleveland, until he married in 1886.
"For almost 30 years, Rose Cleveland maintained a romantic relationship with Evangeline Marrs Simpson Whipple. The women lived together in Italy from 1910, until Rose’s death from the Spanish flu in 1918," notes the exhibit. "Rose and Evangeline are buried side by side in Italy and their love letters, housed in the Whipple Collection in the Minnesota Historical Society, were published in 2019."
I don't know whether there's any mention in the exhibit of President James Buchanan. Historians suspect he was gay, but I've not been hot to claim him, since historians also often label him as the worst president ever. I might be more inclined to embrace Buchanan now, though. Despite the fact that he set the stage for the Civil War, I do believe, after the last four years, the title of America's Lamest Chief Executive no longer belongs to him.
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