24 Jun 08 — Some thoughs on Pride

Oh what a difference 7 years makes! The last time I marched in Louisville was in 2001 when Pride had to be cloaked with the euphemism of a “Justice March.” As I remember it was about 360 folks walking in a straggling unorganized ramble down 4th St. back then instead of a — get this! a parade with floats! And my oh my, there were churches towards the front, the center, and the rear (cradle to grave coverage). They said 500 and that’s believable, but if you add all the folks participating from the balcony of the Connection and the steps of the Arts Center, well, seems like 1,000+ would be more realistic. And as I remember, back then it was mostly us older folks, whereas this time, it was a whole lot of young people as well. What does this all mean? We’re winning. Maybe not so much the hearts and souls of the hard core opposition, but certainly those who in times past have not been able to come out of their closets and join the fun. Let me say a great big thank you to everyone who had done their part in getting us from 2001 to 2008.

Let me put our march here into some perspective. When I pastored the MCC in Santa Ana, California, there was no longer a Pride Event in the surrounding Orange County, so we went over to nearby Long Beach which has one of the biggest events on the Pride Circuit. In 2002 I rode on the back of a restored 1935 Austin Morgan in full clergy drag with my deacon who was in full leather. We were one of about 100 floats lining up for a parade more than a mile in length passing some 300,000 spectators. Yes, only the floats “marched,” the people just stood around, watching and cheering. What struck me so much about all those thousands was how “ordinary” we all looked.

In 2005 our church staffed a booth at the Pride festival. I was there for 12 hours on Saturday and 9 on Sunday. I temporarily lost my hearing part way through since they had put our church booth right next to the Masterbeat® booth that was hawking and demonstrating its dance CDs at mega-volume levels. With literally hundreds of thousands of people passing by and with people who were as good at reaching out and talking to people as the crew did this year at MCC Louisville, over those two days we were able to hand out less than 30 brochures about the church. Conversely, here the crew passed out close to 300 brochures about the church in less than 8 hours with only several thousands passing by. Which just goes to show that California and Kentucky are very different. What works in one place doesn’t always work in another. (Am I ever finding that out!)

So what does it all mean? The Good News is: faith is very important to the folks visiting Louisville’s Pride Festival. There is a hunger. And they are interested in us (and other faith organizations around town). Time to get cooking!