Dear Editor:
On June 28, my son and I attended the Pride Parade. He's 15 now, old enough to understand what's going on, and it sounded like a nice way to spend some time with him. I haven't been to a Pride Parade since the birth of my first child ( more years ago than I would care to admit ) and, seeing it with "fresh eyes" after so many years, I came away with some troubling questions about what the parade is and what it ought to be.
—Is this parade about our community or about commerce? At first I was annoyed by floats entered by business that have nothing in particular to do with the LGBT community but, then, when a car from a Chevy dealership drove by ( Just a car! No float, no marchers, no signs of support for the LGBT community, no transvestite in the sun roof—just a Chevy with a magnetic sign with the dealer's name on the door! ) , it really pissed me off. It is, frankly, a waste of my time to watch a flatbed truck full of Commonwealth Edison employees ( none of whom looked at all gay to me ) drive by. I want a parade that reflects the LGBT community, not a parade of commercials from vendors eager to sell something to my community!
—Is this an LGBT event or not? Is it really appropriate to have contingents with agendas that have nothing whatsoever to do with LGBT pride marching in the parade? I really have no use for animal-rights activists and I don't see why they should be pushing their beliefs in our parade. An ostensibly straight South Side drum-and-twirling corps in a LGBT parade is also rather gratuitous. The parade is long and slow-moving enough without a lot of irrelevant contingents cluttering it up. Yesterday was balmy, but June days are often blisteringly hot, and seeing a lot of contingents that mean nothing to me go by in the hot sun is not my idea of fun.
—Should absentee politicians be allowed to have contingents? I know that it's politically important to see which politicians will march with us, but if they can't bother to actually show up and march, then why should their contingent be taking up space in an over-long parade? I would guess that about half the politicians "represented" yesterday were not there, and I wasn't really interested in watching their largely straight contingents go by in matching T-shirts.
—Is this a family event or an adult carnival? Look, I'm not a prude—far from it: I'm a bisexual leather top—but I am a family man, and I do think that certain things are not appropriate for children. I'm not talking about couples being affectionate or over-the-top drag queens or even a float sponsored by a sex-toy shop; I'm talking about nudity and dry-humping. I kept my kids away from the parade when they were little, but if other parents want to expose their kids to that kind of lewdness, well that's their business. I guess what I'm wondering about here is the kids in the parade. I felt quite uncomfortable seeing very young children marching in the same parade as exhibitionists. This mixed message cannot reflect well upon the LGBT community and I think we need to decide if this event is going to be family friendly or raunchy.
In closing, let me say that there was a whole lot to like about the parade. It's fun to see just how diverse the LGBT community is, with contingents of lesbian bikers, gay rodeo riders, leathermen, every conceivable flavor of drag queen, a broad spectrum of faith communities and truly fabulous Brazilian showgirls. But I think that a shorter parade, composed of more genuinely LGBT elements, would be more fun and give a better picture of our community.
Yours for a better world,
R.M. Schultz
Chicago
