Apologies for the few posts today. After enduring the HRC event last night on CSPAN, I needed to cheer myself up and remember why I'm so glad to be gay. So we went to Bob Mould's and Rich Morel's Blowoff dance party and danced the night away with all the bears. By the time we came to this morning, we had to rush to get to the Equality March. We just got back. The Dish can sometimes wait.
More to the point, this was not a plea for it; it was a statement of it. We are equal. We always have been. The prison of inferiority is in our own psyches as well as in others' fears. But I sense now, for the first time, a critical mass of self-respect among my LGBT brothers and sisters. It was there before; but now it's everywhere, especially the young, who seem to have found the courage of their own desires and the knowledge of their own love.
I don't know how many people showed up and don't care. There were some off-moments, of course, but also some fine, fine messages, from Dan Choi and Cynthia Nixon especially. After watching last night's self-satisfied worship of access to power, it was so great to be among people who are not interested in getting invites to the White House or appointments to federal jobs or yet another photo for their mantelpiece next to Obama. I was among people who simply want to be treated with the respect that they're entitled to.
So I repeat to myself what I often forget. Know hope. Love life. And always remember: gay is good.
(Photo: me, Aaron, Eddy and one of the first gay rights pickets ever made for a Washington protest. It was made in 1965, four years before Stonewall, and the Mattachine heroes held it up in front of the White House on October 23 forty four years ago. Charles Francis brought it, and allowed me to hold it for a while. I am so proud to have been part of this movement, and so honored to touch one its sacred artefacts.)