Frisco fiesta at forty

CEBU, Philippines - The pagan gods were smiling down on the streets of San Francisco when the annual Gay Pride Parade (the fortieth!) unfolded in all its glory. The sun was shining, the weather was cool, and best of all, the marchers were hot.

I had slept for only two hours, woken up at 4:30 am to get to the George Bush airport, and caught a nearly five hour flight to San Francisco. But riding the BART into the city, I was jolted from my sleep-starved stupor by rainbow be-wigged friends in matching striped knee-socks, striding in together with a black bombshell in a purple beehive do, who sat themselves two rows down from where I was.    Then, it hit me – it was the day of Pride!

After checking in at my hotel, I ran down to Market Street, where the parade was expected to wend its way. Symbolically leading the pack was none other than the utterly gorgeous Mayor of the city, Gavin Newsom, who could not have been more dishy in his snazzy spring suit.   Various celebrity Grand Marshalls had been asked to grace the occasion, including Alice Walker and the Backstreet Boys, but Gavin took the (fruit)cake.

The requisite rainbow flags fluttered in the wind as the Gay Men’s Choir sang and danced to the tune of Beyonce’s All the Single Ladies. Cheer San Francisco, the cheerleading queers of the city, performed athletic and acrobatic stunts worthy of any gay-zelle.

Natch, there were floats galore decked out in balloons and mega speakers, while samba dancers on stilts kicked-ball-changed beside the gay and lesbian police force. It was party time as beer and magic brownies (wonder what those contained) were sold openly in the streets, together with churros, falafels, and the standard American hotdogs.

Various nationalities made their presence felt, with the Mexicans sending a sizeable delegation down the runway. The Asian Pacific Islander group blew soap bubbles, with the Gay Vietnamese Alliance waved (dare I say it) gaily to the crowd. Egypt had a two-gay strong contingent, which was doubly better than nothing.

The civil rights groups could not be absent, as exemplified by the American Civil Liberties Union and Amnesty International.  Slogans were visible (example, Genentech’s “Pride is in our Genes”), as well as sundry political messages (ex: the boycott of the Hyatt hotel chain, with placards reading “Hyatt is anti-worker, anti-gay. Sleep with the right people.”)   Of course, gay marriage was one of the issues in the forefront, with many floats bearing messages of support for this civil right so crucial to many activists.

Corporate sponsors like Google, Macy’s and BMW joined the fray, and of course, the religious groups were also present, with floats from the Unitarian Church, the Methodist Church of Oakland (“God is Love, God is Gay”), the Lutheran Church, and the Episcopalians and their women clergy.  

Throughout the parade, it was smiles, applause and cheers for hours on end, as San Franciscans celebrated love for the 40th year running. Yup, there was pride – lots of it, never mind the discrimination, the in-fighting, or the shallowness that sometimes surface in each of us.

As an observer wrote, “It would be nice to live in a truly postmodern society where…pride only springs from endeavors that are truly worthy of the word. But we don’t yet live in such a world, and at this point.. it is more important to use the same cultural and symbolic tools (language and rhetoric and metaphor) that society has consistently used against us, against it. So we fight shame (a mere word really, but it can carry a big stick) with pride.”