Love wins

Pride parades and festivals remind us that our only job is to take care of each other. If we do, when we do, love wins.

Our county’s Pride organization held its annual parade today - a little smaller than the last two years, but still substantial. I encountered a colleague there and mentioned my memory of the first Pride Parade I saw here - about a dozen people walking around a downtown block. Today, the parade took a full half hour to pass our watching spot. People, tractors, dogs, rainbows, and lots of cheers of support; not a single show of opposition or derision of any kind, at least not that I could see.

And our 40+ mph windstorm held off until it was done, thank goodness.

Today’s parade reminded me of the huge events I witnessed in Seattle in its heyday, living on Capitol Hill. Those parades went on forever, and all local and regional politicians had a car or float in them. If you wanted to get elected, you needed to show up for this community.

Now, one of the major parties in our country has made homophobia and transphobia central parts of its platform. And locally, the folks who want to end our city’s commitment to DEI are highly motivated, it seems, by their objections to being asked to “include” queer folk in official civic life.

I’m not at all interested in arguments about whether being gay or trans or bi or anything is a “choice” or a “lifestyle” or any such nonsense. People are who we are, and we all get to decide how we show up in this life. If we show up with love, respect, and kindness, then we are contributing to a better community and better world. Period.

I am curious about why gender still seems to be such a trigger for so many people. What is threatened if we no longer hold rigid ideas about gender, sexuality, sexual identity, and the like? Will we discover ways we are so different?

Or will we discover that we are truly all alike, beneath and within and around it all. We want safety for ourselves and our families, we want clean air and water, nutritious food, health care when we need it, and a chance to experience joy.

Nothing threatening about that, unless, of course, your goal in life is to die with the most toys, and the only way you can win is if others lose.

Pride parades remind us that our only job is to take care of each other. If we do, when we do, love wins.

Be safe and well out there.