Pride and prejudice

So it’s gay pride week in Johannesburg, South Africa, and inevitably this is going to ruffle a few feathers (some of them will be pink and attached to wings on the backs of a bevy of drag queens).

There will be the religious right who will write to newspapers sounding off about how, well, irreligious all this homosexuality stuff is – “God didn’t make Adam and Steve” they will say. Now I’m not sure that the names Adam and Steve were in vogue when God made the world, they seem more 1980’s to me, and surely He would have more to worry about (organising all the animals into pairs for example) than whether two men were getting it on in the garden of Eden.

The religious right will also be lining the gay parade with their posters (“you will all burn in hell” – such a compassionate view not so?) and their megaphones reminding us homosexuals who can’t read the posters (because we will be too happy and gay to notice them) that we must “turn or burn”. I’ve always felt that this would be more appropriate as a slogan for a new barbecue basting sauce rather than as a recipe for roasting naughty queers, but then I have always been a bit odd.

What’s even more worrying than the religious nutters is the queer nutters. You know, the ones who have so internalised their homophobia they’ll rant and rave about how the drag kings and queens are letting us “normal” homosexuals down. “Why do they have to flaunt themselves in such an outrageous manner?” they’ll fume – “they’ll be photographed and get front page and that’s what the world will think of us”. Oh get over it. 

And then there is the lobby which says that pride is the wrong word to describe what we as gays and lesbians and bi’s should feel. I am just like everyone else, they feel: do heterosexuals feel proud of who they are? I think this misses the point – it’s not that gay people feel “proud” of who they are because it is better than any other sexual orientation – it’s that in the face of homophobia (or what some call homo-hatred) there is sometimes a need to assert a confidence and comfort with who one is. If the best word that fits this set of ideas is “pride”, then so be it.

Others, our more political brothers and sisters (we are a small band I’ll admit), will argue that there isn’t much to celebrate when oppression and harm towards gay and lesbian people still happens. Just this week I attended a conference for university students from a number of southern African universities and oh my word the homophobia was real and ugly. “It goes against nature, it is not part of our culture, our faiths don’t permit it, it’s a colonial thing”. Every possible excuse was trotted out to deny the reality of same sex sexualities.

So in the light of all this I still believe there’s a place for celebration of diversity and community. I’ll grant you that the word “community” is often more a wish than a reality (like when you start planning the wedding on the second date) when it comes to gay and lesbian realities. But so what if it’s a temporary phenomenon? Don’t we all need something to believe in when times are bleak or our spirits are low? For one day, the Gay Pride event reminds us what is possible – a feeling of belonging to something bigger, being accepted for who we are (internal divisions aside) in the rainbow of queerness. And all done with wit, humour and a dollop of excessive bad taste. How bad can that be?