Michelangelo Signorile, a SiriusXM radio host and author of the book “It’s Not Over: Getting Beyond Tolerance, Defeating Homophobia and Winning True Equality,” says the problem is rooted in younger generations being carefree. “The onus is both on the LGBT organizations to use pride to reach out to this gigantic audience that shows up for the party, as well as on the people going to the party to realize, ‘Hey, this is more than just, like, drinking with my gay BFFs,’” she says. “I think it’s because we have been raised in an era where we’re starting to see things be much more accepted and see sort of a more tolerant landscape,” says Beredjick.īeredjick adds that both spectators and marchers need to refocus in order to make the day more about politics than partying. That’s why it’s not surprising that millennials would sooner take on a bar crawl than take in a civics lesson on that day, says 24-year-old Camille Beredjick, who works for an LGBT nonprofit.īeredjick believes the growing visibility and acceptance of LGBT people by overall society can play into disinterest.
It’s not all about celebration and #Instagay selfies.Ī post shared by Otis ON 007 younger LGBT folks, “RuPaul’s Drag Race” resonates more than the documentary “Stonewall Uprising,” so the parade is a chance (in Ru’s words) to “sissy that walk,” rather than a call to arms. It’s time for hard-partying millennials and jaded gays of a certain age to pump the brakes on the festive floats and realize - despite Friday’s landmark Supreme Court decision - that there are still many important reasons for the march. Yet every year the one-time political rally devolves into an afternoon of day-drinking, ogling nearly-naked dancers on bouncing floats and hooking up.
It’s both entertaining and empowering to gather friends and watch politicians, groups like ACT UP and the Sirens Motorcycle Club (a k a “dykes on bikes”), floats from seemingly every gay bar in the five boroughs, and an exhaustive roster of corporate sponsors as they march downtown in support of LGBT causes. Like thousands of other LGBT New Yorkers - as well as our allies - I always look forward to the last Sunday in June, when Heritage of Pride’s week of events wraps with the massive two-mile march that snakes down Fifth Avenue to Christopher Street in Greenwich Village. People celebrate outside the Supreme Court in Washington, DC, after Friday morning’s historic decision on marriage. Spectators have become more focused on bar-hopping and hoping for a Laverne Cox sighting than considering the ongoing impact of the 1969 Stonewall riots.Īnd frankly, we can do better. The historically significant event has been reduced to a rainbow-colored stepchild of the city’s other boozy, street-closing spectacle - the St. Over the years the actual point of the massive parade has been lost. The city is going to go bananas at Sunday’s annual gay pride march.īut LGBT people have some serious soul-searching to do, too.
With Friday morning’s landmark Supreme Court ruling giving a thumbs up to same-sex marriage, New York’s gay community has some celebrating to do.