June is Pride Month.
Like so many other observances, it has become commercialized in a lot of ways. As far as I'm concerned, I'd rather corporations call positive attention to it rather than how things were in the old days, when LGBTQ+ people were invisible or portrayed as predators, more so than today.
We should also keep in mind that there are LGBTQ+ people who are monogamous, and also those who are polyamorous or otherwise involved in consensual, ethical, or disclosed nonmonogamy. There are also LGBTQ+ people who are consangunamorous or have consanguineous relationships. All these people should have their rights.
Let's celebrate gender, sexuality, and relationship diversities. May allies join in, and may there be solidarity for all!
Let's make it a great month!
Are you going to any events?
In this Pride Month, let's honor those who suffered persecution for their sexual identity and even met death at the hands of fanatics.
ReplyDeleteLet's express our support to those of our brothers and sisters who live in countries where they cannot openly express their sexuality without being persecuted by the state, religious organizations,and even by their own families.
I wish you all peace, courage and love.
It wasn't so long ago that a time-honored song by Richard Rodgers (of Rodgers and Hammerstein fame) made waves for daring to deal with the subject of "forbidden" love - forbidden only because anti-social bigotries made it a crime regardless of its being victimless. The song was, "We Kiss In A Shadow", from "The King and I", and its words apply to all those persecuted for daring to love consensually in defiance of pathological social "norms": "We kiss in a shadow. We hide from the moon./ Our meetings are few, and over too soon!/ We speak in a whisper, afraid to be heard./ When people are near, we speak not a word./ Alone in our secret, together we sigh/ for one smiling day to be free/ to kiss in the sunlight, and say to the sky,/ 'Behold, and believe what you see!/ Behold how my lover loves me!' " That song became a kind of second national anthem for the gay community, and was at the center of concerts by The San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus, one of which I heard on local radio when I was in the Bay Area. It was sung rather quietly, but its message was heartbreaking relevant back in 1981, and is still just as relevant now!
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing this heartwarming memory.
DeleteThe theme of the forbidden love of people separated by social barriers, prejudices and prohibitions is universal and knows no time and distance.
I think Romeo & Juliet, Tristan & Isolde, Abélard & Héloïse would understand and sympathize with modern LGBTQ+.