There are some answers you get from some blogs that make you think a lot of what you have written, on the same time they make you remember yourself some time ago. My Post Pride Thoughts ignite a response from my dearest metanoeiste whose line of argument is based on a universal truth “There is no right or wrong. Only Human Beings”.
And that’s true. I am never 100% right, even when my arguments are perfect, like you can never be 100% wrong. I always believed that there is more colours than black and white, and if you don’t believe that you can never thought about accepting beyond the bipolar consciousness, under which e grow up. I read again my post and I tried to understand what was missing and made me sound so totalitarian.
I know I got passionate, or to be more accurate i got sad once more, and when I was writing my article I just put down direct feelings. Mow it’s the time though to clear things a bit.
There is no obligation for anyone to support the gay pride, if he doesn’t feel like. I am not the one who is going to keep the attendance register, and no one has the right to. As I said most of my friends were not there, but that doesn’t mean that I consider them as inferior to me, or that I won’t talk to them again. I always respect their right to be absent. I also have to add that the Pride is one day of the year and propabbly you cannot always be available.
My problem starts with people who are nihilistic towards the whole event. Most of us gay people, are not just saying that they don’t feel like being there, they say that they have nothing in common with this crowd, that there is no point in doing your outing in any way, outside our small group ghettos. Going out of the closet is a hard thing to do, and to tell you the truth a ceaseless procedure. It’s truth that every time you enter in a new environment you are always in the closet and you have to balance things in order to free yourself.
i am not the guy meeting a group of people and starting by saying “I am gay”. Actually they don’t care and they shouldn’t care what I do in bed. On the other hand you should be able to tell the truth naturally without having to take a deep breath before saying anything. Because when they ask you in a quite conversation if you are in a relationship you should not be thinking it over and over, if you deny it, if you lie, if you tell the truth.
You are totally right about telling that it’s all about education. We have to learn to accept the strange one, the one who is different from us. It’s not about homosexuals only, it’s about any sub-other being that our WASP society cannot accept. But how are you going to do it? How will you make people see that things are not black or white, when you decide to cover yourself under white? People who do things towards the common good and are not present at the big protests are the exception.
I know a guy who was not at the Pride, but he stood up in his classroom and talked about gay rights. I know a guy who is not out to his parents but he publicly signed an article on gay marriage. I know a guy who is holding his boyfriend hand whenever he feels like. I know a girl who outed to her mother and her conservative environment really early. I know people who are out during their military service and gained the respect of the rest. I know a guy who went out to his conservative friends and made them accept him. All these are moves that educate people, that change things bit by bit. And they are more important than the pride, because they are not an event, they are everyday life.
Still for all of us to this there were some people who struggle. The growing number of people in the pride shows that less and less people are afraid to be there, and that happens thanks equally to the pride and the above small everyday events.
No it’s not obligatory to be there. If you don;t feel like you have not to go. I don’t care that much. Even if you want to stay in the closet and make your own perfect world there is acceptable, and I am not going to burn you or judge you for that. But still I have the right to point out my beliefs even if I go and destroy someone’s illusion. We live in a self centered world, not only on what has to do with our sexuality, in general we are ready to accept our loss of rights (think of the week of 65 working hours that was just accepted by the EE). We jut listen to the events and we just try not to let our own selves to be touched. The rest of the world is not our buisness.
This attitude makes me sad and not that someone doesn’t like to go out dancing in the street. Yes it’s true we are only humans and not perfect, but we forget so many times about humanity, community and the other one just beside us. I am human and I don’t want to be alone…
