Gay Pride???????

I didn't do anything to celebrate gay pride. Okay, fine ... maybe I kissed a boy. But it wasn't in a gay setting (Wonderland), it wasn't the right day (Friday), and it wasn't to celebrate gay pride (it was mostly cause I dug him). I worked the day and night of the parade and the parties, mostly serving a non-gay crowd. I went out with my non-gay friends, and had a non-gay time. It was a blast.

What bothers me most is my friend Sean, saying that I didn't have celebrate gay pride because gay pride was invented for an earlier generation, where being proud to be gay was a revolutionary reaction to those who said we had to be ashamed. I'm not sure how I feel about this. Sean and I grew up in the same neck of the woods (the San Francisco bay area), and I think he understands a little bit about where I come from, but I don't think that I lack gay pride, but I somehow can't place my finger on a good reason to celebrate.



My enemies may argue that I am a one-man gay pride parade 365 days a year. Others may argue (the "others" in my head) that I think that gay pride is as valid as gay shame - that we are who we are, and should just be. But this argument invalidates previous generations who didn't have the luxury to be who they were, and instead became husbands and fathers or priests and pathological liars. This argument throws our history into the fire the same way someone would go hiking into the wilderness without a map (or their iPhone).

Its important to chart our path. I see this in my Latino half. I may not be illegal, or an immigrant, or first generation. I may not have an accent, but I know that it is as important to assimilate as it is to anchor yourself. That is the trouble of these times, and those of us who are multi-generational. I AM proud to be gay, the same way I am PROUD to be Mexican. I just don't feel like its anyone's business but my own.

Mind you, I wrote this drunk. Editing will come later.