Friday, March 18, 2016

St. Patrick's Gay Parade


Photo seen HERE.

Didn't make it to New York City's first-ever LGBT-inclusive St. Patrick's Day Parade yesterday, but was tickled pink -- and green with envy -- seeing this photo of Brendan Fay, Edie Windsor and Christine Quinn leading the Lavender and Green Alliance contingency, which has fought for this day for-ever. A Bernie queen friend of mine recently wrote that he feared "eight more years of Obama" if Hillary is elected, to which I replied: "God, I sure hope so!" After praising Obama for getting us out of the financial crisis, I went on to say these past seven-plus years have politically been the best of my life because of Obama's leadership -- and Supreme Court nominations -- that saw the government finally recognize me (and all LGBT people) as a full human being for the first time. My friend -- like all Bernie queens -- immediately pushed back with a vengeance, saying: 
"Gay marriage has nothing to due [sic] with you being recognized as a human being. Don't forget the SCOTUS is made up of 9 judges and 4 of them were against it, not to mention the almost 40% of the country that doesn't agree with gay marriage. Gays in the military have been there all along and about 30% of the nation is against us serving openly. Neither one of these things has actually given us civil liberties." 
Needless to say, I didn't need someone to tell me about how divided the Supreme Court is -- or the nation, for that matter. But I couldn't disagree with my friend more about what gay marriage and open military service mean as far as the human experience for LGBT people. 


Watch HERE.

You only need to see the emotion in Brendan Fay's eyes as he explained what being a part of yesterday's parade meant to him to know that Obama's push for our inclusion may just be his greatest legacy of all. It's not just Obama -- and Mrs. Clinton -- working to fix laws against us. It's their including us in the State of the Union or at State Department events. It's their recognizing us as everyday people, inviting LGBT families to the White House for the Easter egg hunt or Christmas tree lighting. Trickle-down economics have been proven time and time again to not work. But trickle-down societal acceptance does. And if my friend still doesn't think the right to marry, the right to serve openly and everything else that has come with those things is our having "civil liberties," perhaps he doesn't know what "civil liberties" are. 


A banner day in NYC!


2 comments:

Jeffery said...

Some people only see the glass half empty. They are happier that way.

Bob K said...

Tell your "Bernie Queen friend" that I describe him as

-- A BITTER PILL THAT NO ONE WANTS TO SWALLOW --