Homo sex is great!

Madison is a bubble of hyper-liberalism, this is true, so it's always surprising when, for instance, protesters show up at our cute little gay pride parade. There were about a half dozen of them out for the festivities on Sunday, holding their bizarre signs railing against homosexuality and encouraging everyone to fear God (what a strange take on spirituality).

Remembering a delightful photo I'd seen circulating the internet over the years, I immediately asked a nearby woman who was happily counter-protesting if she could quickly whip up a sign that simply said "GREAT" on it, and then would she be so kind as to hold it up directly under/over the "HOMO SEX IS SIN" sign?

Much to her credit, the woman smiled and hurried off to make it happen. This is the resulting picture.

It's always deeply tempting to negatively engage with people espousing such hurtful bigotry - but, in my experience, nothing is ever really accomplished by that save making the other person feel more righteously justified in their cause. Crazy queer is attacking me! I'm right, they're all dangerous anger bears! Which isn't really what we should be aiming for, right?

Better to go for the good-hearted laugh, I say, and then focus on more long-term, educational, compassionate campaigns to change public opinion overall. Expose these folks to real live gay people - people from all walks of life, regular folk just trying to be themselves - and kill 'em with kindness (and humor), as they say.

The subtle art of the successful rally

Gay Pride events in Madison are always held a little later than in the rest of the country. When most places are celebrating all the colors of the LGBT rainbow in June, Madison likes to kick back and wait until the dog days of August to get its gay on.

And that's OK. Frankly, it'd be hard to compete with the much bigger festivals in nearby cities like Milwaukee and Chicago. We here in Madison are pretty keen on marching to our own drummer, anyway. And, truth be told, our fair city kind of does Pride all year round (one of many reasons to love this crazy place).

Just last month, for instance, Madison's LGBT residents and their allies marched and rallied to counter the bigotry and distortions of the National Organization for Marriage's anti-equality tour. Some 500 gay rights supporters turned out for an event that drew a diverse coalition of individuals and groups from around Wisconsin.

So I was surprised when the Wisconsin Capitol Pride festivities on Sunday featured more politicking and speechifying than celebrating.

After a joyous parade around the capitol building, down State Street, and onto Library Mall, revelers were met by the thumpa thumpa of a DJ spinning dance tunes. People were exhilarated, ready to party, feelin' good.

And then began the seemingly endless line-up of speeches. Mayor Dave, Tammy Baldwin, Sheriff Mahoney, Mark Pocan, and a fellow running for the Wisconsin Supreme Court all took their turns in front of the microphone while the assembled crowd grew more and more sun baked and subdued.

Let me be clear: I'm in no way saying that politics and the politicians who represent and support the LGBT community have no place at Pride festivities. Quite the opposite. I'm glad they're there. I think it's crucial that our elected representatives show their support by showing their faces (second only to actually working for positive change, of course).

I believe there is a place for good, motivational speeches at Pride, too - but for the love of sunscreen, can we limit the number and pacing of the speakers? For all of the positive energy that had been built up during the parade, by the time the final talker talked themselves out, half of the people had gone home.

The band (disco superstars VO5) was finally able to go on, effectively pulling some folks back in and prompting a good ol' gay dance-off, but then had to stop after maybe five songs for yet more talking. And that's when I gave up and left.

Look, I'm sure the people behind Madison's official Pride celebration mean well, and I'm fully aware of how difficult it can be to properly organize large events (been there, done that) - but that's no excuse for not trying to improve.

Pride is about going out, getting a little rowdy, and showing the world how spectacularly awesome every element of our human family is. It's about being yourself and loving it, about being an example to all those still crushed under the boot of oppression and ignorance of what's possible - and, dammit, it's about having fun.

The good people of Madison spend much of their year being active, engaged citizens working hard to improve their communities. That's why Pride has always been, to me anyway, a time to kick off our shoes and just enjoy ourselves. A little less politics and a little more booty shaking, you know?

So next year, here's how we do it:

Parade around the capitol and down State Street? Great. Done. Have the crowd met by an awesome DJ, good food vendors, local artists and businesses sellin' stuff, etc. at Library Mall. Make it a proper festival! Do a very brief crowd rev up, introduce big political supporters en masse (let them wave, smile for cameras, and at most take a minute to say their peace), and then get back to the party.

Also, before any of this happens, make sure plans and expectations for the various events are clearly and concisely laid out in your PR materials so people have a decent idea of what to expect and when (I saw nothing about all of the speeches and speakers in said materials for this event, for instance).

Finally and foremost, be all-inclusive.

Follow these very simple guidelines and I can almost guarantee you won't face another awkward situation where 3/4ths of your audience leaves during someones speech.

Sure, it's not the apocalypse if a Pride celebration gets a bit bungled. There are far worse things happening in the world that we could (and should) be working on. But Pride is still important - for the veterans of the struggle to mark progress made, for those people just figuring themselves out to see what's possible, for misguided folks who really can, slowly but surely, have their minds changed just by our community's increasing visibility.

People care. You care. Let's work together to get it right.

P.S. On a related note, this is fairly awesome: "A CNN poll this month found that a narrow majority of Americans supported same-sex marriage — the first poll to find majority support." About damn time.

Music, bikes, beer, and the great outdoors

What are you doing this evening at 6:00p.m.? Unless you're planning to come to the UW Memorial Union Terrace, it's nothing important, I can tell you that.

And why all the bluster from me? Because my band, Little Red Wolf, is playing a free show at that very time, in that very place, and you should come! We'll be running through an hour-long set of our original music, and the whole dang thing will be powered by people riding bikes. Seriously! What's not to love? Add the Terrace's friendly, convivial vibe, the close proximity to good drinks and food, and the fact that we'll be handing out free copies of our new, 6-song demo CD, and you really just can't go wrong.

More about the show here, here, and here.

And if for some crazy reason you can't make it, do check our Myspace page in the next few days when we'll be uploading some of those demo songs for public consumption. Hooray!

Then I'll be off to Chicago for the weekend, to spend time with my sister and celebrate Gay Pride (not to mention the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, aka the beginning of the modern gay rights movement). Enjoy your weekend!

The good news for Dec. 12, 2008

Friday news dump edition! The world is always full of news, really, but these days it does feel like there's an especially large pile of it weighing down on us. Terrorist attacks in India, a cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe that's being ignored by its awful leader, worldwide economic collapse, etc. etc. So you'll understand why only one of my links is to something that's potentially good. It was hard to find!

• [Capital Times] A new gay dance club may well be opening its doors on Willy St., should the neighborhood not object to its location. The name of the club, Plan B, is pretty silly, but generally I'm all for more gay-friendly establishments, especially ones that have good DJs (fingers crossed!).
• [Salon] Oh Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, you may as well be a character in a David Mamet play. Happily, Choire Sicha has seen to it that we're made aware of the eerie (and hilarious) similarities. Next you'll be blaming women for everything that goes wrong in your life!
• [Chicagoist] Speaking of Blagojevich, here's a hilarious illustration of the man parachuting himself into prison.
• [San Francisco Chronicle] Still-President Bush is still pissing on everything good in this country, pushing through administrative rule changes that aim to effectively gut the Endangered Species Act. Screw polar bears and mountain frogs, am I right?! (I've written about some of the other fabulous last-minute changes the Bush admin is pushing through, too)
• [Green Building Elements] Had to quick add this one, because it's so incredibly awesome and I want to do this for myself someday: Hand-Build an Earth Sheltered House for $5,000.
  

We have pride in Madison

The rumors about the death of Pride in Madison have been greatly exaggerated.

While most cities celebrate Gay Pride in June, Madison (perhaps unsurprisingly) likes to march to the beat of its own, unique drummer and get their festivities on in July. Specifically, this weekend. There has been much said of the major tumble taken by the Madison Pride organization, wherein their now former bookkeeper did a not-so-legit job of keeping said books. Because of that debacle, this year's events hosted by the group have been scaled back considerably.

Still, I have to give kudos to them for sticking with it and making something happen despite the trouble. Madison Pride has done a good job of providing the more family and politically oriented GLBTQ celebrations of years past, and I'm hopeful that they'll see their way through the mess and grow bigger and better in the future.

It's definitely worth noting, however, that this door closing has lead to an impressively opened window. Liz Tymus of indie Queer fame, plus a gaggle of other dedicated folks, have put together an awesome weekend of Pride festivities that may very well foreshadow the future of this high holiday of queerness in Madison. While it's important to maintain the more traditional celebrations, it's great to see that a new generation of queer and queer-friendly people are continuing to carry the banner, creating newer and more diverse celebrations that help to elevate every corner of the community. After what seemed like a long dry spell for gay friendly events and organizations around Madison, the last couple of years have seen a welcome upswing--from Patrick Farabaugh and the founding of Our Lives Magazine, to the rise of indie Queer, to the opening of Woof's, and the Majestic being so accomodating to queer events, things are looking up.

So while getting your Pride on is much less confined to just one weekend these days, it's good to know that the big celebration will never die. In fact, it seems to be growing up and branching out, which is most welcome.

Happy Pride!

P.S. Yours truly is also doing her best to contribute by throwing what promises to be one of the coolest events of the summer. Find out more by clicking on that fancy banner to the right of this text, and then come out to the Majestic next Saturday! Seriously, it'll be worth it if for nothing else than to see me freaking right the fuck out over organizing and producing something of this magnitude, pretty much all on my own.