Is Pride a Sin?

I was at a pride event recently, the Pink Festival in Cambridge, and a friend said to me "I don't get pride, I don't see the point of it. I'm gay but I don't need to ram it down anyones throats.".

And that got me thinking.

On the one hand I cannot disagree with her, not because she's my lover or so butch that she's intimidating, but because I actually agree with her point of view.

And yet I also disagree.

The problem as I see it isn't that I feel the need to express my sexuality so strongly that I must dress up as a rainbow clad super hero and blast you all with my gay ray, naturally i'm much more inclinced to go with "Yes i'm gay, did I not mention that before?".

But there is a part of me that recognises that my ability to live as I please, with who I please (given their consent of course!), is something which has had to be fought for with blood, the freedoms I enjoy today are a consequence of the many thousands of gay marytrs who made the ultimate sacrifice to get the civil rights movement to where it is today.

And I also realise that the fight is not over, and that these rights - partial as they currently are - can so easily be lost.

It only takes the wrong party to get into power and suddenly the freedoms we enjoy can be taken away without so much as a mention in the press, take for example the plight of Britains transexuals.

The Equality Bill being introduced this year expressly ALLOWS discrimination against transexuals in employment and public places. You can't just be transphobic to them - of course that's wrong! - But you are allowed to deny them entry to anywhere where there aren't toilet facilities which don't conform to binary gender norms. They can also be barred from places where they might make non-transexuals feel uncomfortable, and they can forget about competition in sports - apparently the existing Olympic rules (no competition whilst a prior gender advantage remains) were not enough.

This law will be introduced under the current Conservative government. A right of centre party.

Today Britain still does not allow gay marriage, we have civil unions - a token gesture introduced under the last Conservative government in an attempt to quel the screaming queens yet still maintain the Conservative desire for appartheid.

The campaign for civil rights is not over and until it is I am bound by my sense of what is right and wrong to stand up and be counted for what I believe in:

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