In one minute at San Francisco gay pride, I saw…
Studly men
Cigarettes
Cat mustache
Glow in the dark jewelry
Swaying hips
Pink furred boots
Penis
Thump thump balls
Black
Porta-potties
Glasses
Camera flashes
Beautiful girls
Warm jackets
White
Hot dogs
Drunk
Shamble
Skateboarding
Blue hair
Naked
Plaque
“When I was in the military they gave me a medal for killing two men and a discharge for loving one.”
~Epitaph of Leonard P. Matlovich, 1988
This epitaph is memorialized on a plaque on 18th street outside of his home. In front of that plaque streamed thousands of people sharing gay pride, celebrating the legalization of gay marriage in New York, celebrating the ability to freely love each other. So many people gathered, the streets overflowed with happiness and humanity.
On the streets, I saw impromptu parties, gatherings of people, clustered like ants around random houses, accompanied by the thump-thump of music and swaying bodies. Through warm lit windows you could see more bodies coming and going, perhaps talking of Michelangelo.
I could feel, and share, the very real joy on Market street, the jubilation on Castro, the love on 16th. As a straight man in a sea of fabulous, I did not feel out of place at all. I asked myself, “Why?” I mean, I was amongst people who were clearly not of my sexual orientation.
But that’s just the thing. It doesn’t matter which hole one prefers, or whether they leave the seat up or down. We’re people, and that’s all that matters.
I could feel the injustice of prohibiting a human being from entering a loving compact with another human being, regardless of their sexual orientation. How can we, as a country, stand between anyone — for the flimsiest of justifications; no matter how ancient or religious, it simply takes eyes and a heart to know that it’s wrong.
With the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and the slow but sure advancement of gay rights in the United States, there is a real sense that change is happening, and that it is within reach that everyone will have the right to be fabulous — and married.
