Gay Pride: Everyday Should Be a Gay Pride Parade

Who doesn’t love a parade?  And of course gay pride parades are always extravagant events with colorful costumes and outrageous outfits music and dancing and all sorts of fabulousness. However, what about the other 364 days a year?

Gay pride should not be confined to one day a year.  Sure, we can’t all wear sequined jumpsuits with a peacock feather headdress to work everyday (although wouldn’t work be more fun if we could?), but all too often the spirit and force behind gay pride is lost in day to day life.

Too often, we gays and lesbians are spending so much of our efforts trying to fit in and be accepted, that we are forgetting to be ourselves.  We are gay every day of the year, regardless if there is a parade or demonstration going on.  Every day we should be doing our part to strengthen the gay community.

Society as a whole cannot learn to accept gay people, if they only come out of the closet one day a year.  The gay community needs to be present in every day life.  Whenever we are the victims of homophobia we must stand up for our right to exist.  Whether it’s some conservative right-winger speaking out against us on television, or someone at the office making a gay joke, we need to defend ourselves every time, no matter how awkward or uncomfortable the situation may be.  Too often we just shrug and accept that something is the way it is, and then go about our day.  But being complacent doesn’t help us.  If you see something, say something!

We don’t see straight people trying to hide who they are on a daily basis or trying to downplay their sexual preference.  We need to be who we are at all times.  We cannot shy away from certain topics of conversation or edit ourselves so that we are more innocuous to the straight community.