Pride

This post is the first of hopefully many perspectives on pride submitted by TNG readers, per our request.

I'll try to be brief here but I think "pride" is a very serious issue within our community (and others) and I think what it really boils down to is tolerance and acceptance.

The LGBT community is bound by many common goals, perhaps the most important being widespread acceptance. We still can't marry in most states. In some parts of the world (including the US) we are still being persecuted. Politics thus often get in the way of pride.

I have many gay friends who are unwilling to accept other members of their community for various reasons. Because we are a protean, heterogeneous bunch. There are gay teachers, lawyers, intellectuals. There are gay middle-American football fans. There are gay parents, gay doctors. There are also leather-wearing, porn-watching, Bulldog-gin-drinking, Black Party-types who occasionally indulge in a little (stereotypical) gay decadence. Do any of these groups -- and they are all generalizations, yes -- have less of a right to be who they are than others? Some people think so. Some people think some gays are "ruining it" for the rest of us.

I say seeking tolerance means HAVING tolerance -- and PRIDE -- yourself. And realizing that even though the gay person next to you might not be of the same mind, he or she really wants the same things you do in the end. That's something you BOTH can be proud of, and that's something worth celebrating. We will never achieve anything without pride in the gay community as a community.

-Take the Gay Train