"pride is over" - or is it?

[thoreau]

So - the end of another pride week in San Francisco. The once a year poetry readings. The once a year parade. The once a year festival in the Civic Center.

I love reading blogs and Facebook on pride weekend - everyone is so optimistic - and speaks about how much they love each other and their friends; they speak about their coming out story; they post smiling pictures of their friends draped in rainbows walking in parade or on the back of a motorcyle. I do - I love it all.

but - I wonder what we could do to keep the feeling of the last five to seven days going year around. We live in some very difficult times. The southeast US is under seige from the worst environmental disaster ever with hurricane season coming it could make a horrific situation and turn it into an environmental holocaust. Montana and Texas GOP platforms include talking points on re-criminalizing homosexuality. and they do so in no uncertain terms. Our government is hopelessly deadlocked both at the state level and at the federal level. Americans are soon going to be asked (whether it's popular or easy or hard) to sacrifice in ways they haven't since World War II and Korea - and it's going to hurt, people. Our deficit is so out of control - that even reasonable lawmakers are voting not to extend government unemployment benefits. In the west we're moving into a wildfire season that could be unprecedented because of all the green lush underbrush the long wet winter provided. Forecasts say that fire season could completely bankrupt many western states.

40 years ago - Pride started in San Francisco - and it helped earn San Francisco a reputation as the safe haven for not only gays and lesbians - but everyone that had felt disenfranchised elsewhere. But even the Californian landscape is changing - to where 25% of the people in San Francisco - (one in four) - voted YES on Prop 8 in 2008.

I wish there was a way to find a way to channel all of this energy - this positivity and inclusivity that we burst forward with all year long - - into accomplishing the change we want to see around us - (and I'm talking farther than the end of your block). Discrimination and the AIDS epidemic showed that when cornered - the queer community can fight back and win it's place at the table in America. Why don't we feel cornered now - to get out and volunteer and take that pride to other parts of our lives? Why don't we phone tree for democrat candidates, or environmental groups or write letters to our reps and senators about important issues. Why aren't we STILL marching down market street demanding equality?

They expect us queers to do it on the last Sunday in June as we've been doing for 40 years - but what if we marched down the street EVERY day. and you know I don't mean half a million people on Market? what I mean is we need to keep working for the rest of the year. and I pose this question after EVERY election and EVERY Pride day - just to remind people that there is a LOT of work to do - We have so much to offer the greater community than just a day of rainbow slathered photos in the sun. So much more.

You've seen my posts about the nonprofit web work I'm doing with my friend Darrell (http://www.twocreativeguys.com) - I'd really like to hear from people on LIvejournal and Facebook - what are you going to do this year in your community? How are YOU going to push it one bit farther to help everyone make it along.

I know this post 'll get a share of naysayers and "who are you to tell me to do ....." --- but if you pack up your pride till next June? you're doing the community and ultimately yourself the biggest disservice of all.