Pride is the big party at the end of a long day of hard work; except most of us are just showing up for the party

Fifth Avenue is the premiere location in the world for celebrations of cultural diversity and community pride and when the lavender stripe runs down the avenue past Tiffany's, Saks Fifth Avenue, Rockefeller Center and Saint Patrick's Cathedral, I for one am annually reborn and each time it is as a more complete human being. And Pride holds a very special place in the panoply of community celebrations on America's most prestigious and famous main street. In October, the Italians march. In November, it's the veterans. In March, it's the Irish. The Greeks march in April and the Puerto Ricans and the Jews march in May. But in June, we all March under one rainbow flag. The unified power of New York's diverse gay community reflects the unique diversity of New York as a whole--and it is a powerful and unstoppable force. And as much as it swells my heart with Pride, it equally weighs me down with sadness.

Yes, I'm crazy for the Fifth Avenue Pride Parade but for too many years now it's been the tail wagging the dog. We took the active out of activism and replaced it with party, creating partyism. All that energy, focus and enthusiasm and all we can think to do with it in the land of Dobson, Bush, Robertson and sporadic civil rights is throw a party.

It's not what the Founding Fairies intended. Not at all.

After the dust of the Stonewall riots had settled, queer New York realized that something momentous had happened and they would make sure that it would keep happening until homosexuality was no longer illegal, queers had access to the same civil rights that were enjoyed by straight Americans--at least white Christian ones, and that two people of the same sex could embrace romantically in the bright light of day. The intent was that the parade would each year grow in numbers of men and women, gay and straight demanding equal rights for queer Americans. Women, Blacks and Jews were already well on the case by 1969 and queers were a little late to the 60s party, but we were finally speaking up and out.

But in the wake of the AIDS holocaust, today's New York Pride Parade and many other major Pride Parades have become nothing more than fabulous parties with some incidental nods to non-sexual gay life and some even lessor nods to political activism. Historically-speaking the reason is obvious, simple and partly tragic. As a result of AIDS and HIV, Pride morphed from a demand for rights to a celebration of survival and life. And that does not serve us well. Parties are a fantastic distraction and thoroughly therapeutic but when the booze runs out and the sun comes up, somebody has to clean up the mess--and too few of us these days are pitching in to do so.

My personal bond to Pride

On a very personal level, the Pride parade provides a profound psychological and emotional litmus test of my own degree of growing self-acceptance and homophobia. Years, ago, I wouldn't dare attend. Years later, I would attend and hide behind the crowd, afraid to be seen, afraid to be identified with the marching queers. After a while, I was smiling, on the curb and thrilled to part of the community, to be identified as one of them. With each passing year, I would learn much about myself from the texture of the emotions generated just by being there. Today, I scream at my friends, wear every pin and trinket handed to me and make sure that every tourist in my way knows I'm a big old queen.

A few years ago I convinced a very closeted young Eastern European friend of mine to attend the parade. He was extremely uncomfortable and it took much negotiation and compromise. But we went and he slowly left the doorways and the anonymity of the crowd. His face relaxed and his smile grew minute by minute. I watched him grow as a gay man more in those few hours than he had in the many months before. And on this level the Pride Parade is a miracle.

But through it all, I've never grown philosophically comfortable with nearly naked men, topless biker dykes, floats with Go-Go boys, male escorts and giant bottles of vodka as the major and most common visuals. These and every aspect of gay life should be celebrated in this parade, but not--and this is the critical point--at the expense of political activism. The Pride Party should be celebrated at the end of a massive political rally demanding social change, commanding the media's attention and demonstrating a singular, powerful and angry community voice of a huge and focused voting bloc.

Instead we dish up aggressive sexuality, an apparent celebration of promiscuity and thanks to a photo-op hungry tabloid mentality media--pierced nipples, ripped abs and leather dykes on Harley's define who we are. The media's message to America? Queers are little more than sexual adventurers.

Even beyond the parade, the menu of Pride activities reads like one of these lavish 3-day high society weddings or Sweet Sixteen parties rather than the activist crusade that it should be..

Lincoln Center will host a salute to Gay Pride with a dance festival and lesson in the public plaza hosted by Queer Eye's Jai Rodriguez.

The Fifth Annual Stonewall Regatta, the only gay and lesbian regatta in this country will race around the Statue of Liberty and along Lower Manhattan.

New York's prestigious Dance Theater Workshop will present two Donna Scro Gentile/Freespace world premieres about coming out and the closet.. The company will also revive "Chyrsalis" (2003), "a hauntingly beautiful piece about birth and transformation. "

The nation's second largerst LGBT Community Center will host an elegant garden party.

The New York theater and film community is supporting various film and theatrical festivals throughout the city.

The Trevor Project will stage a comedy and musical variety show.

The Jewish Community Center has hired a steel drum band to celebrate Pride with a festive Caribbean theme.

Party after party, as we celebrate ourselves for a job not yet done, in fact, far from done.

In the shadow of the Stonewall Inn, the annual candlelight vigil and march will commemorate all those we have loved and lost to HIV and AIDS. A procession of bikes leads the march down Christopher Street to the piers, where there is a non-denominational prayer service, and a wreath is cast into the Hudson River. The question we must ask ourselves is if activism and gay civil rights were among the victims of this terrible holocaust?

A bit of history

Excellent arguments can be made that would place the origins of contemporary gay activism in early 20th Century Berlin, 1950s America or early 1960s San Francisco and Philadelphia, but no moment in modern gay history is as iconic and as universally stirring as that night on Christopher Street when the patrons of Stonewall Inn decided that enough is enough.

Obviously, in the days, months and years following that night on June 28, 1969, change happened at an extraordinary pace.

Gay activism came out of the closet and swept across the land like a rebellious, angry and joyous adolescent. The Gay Liberation Front, the Gay Activist's Alliance and many other groups took to the streets and college campuses, demanding a place beside Black Power, Women's Lib and the Anti-War movement--not always welcomed but there nonetheless.

But something else, something other than gay activism, something unique to gay culture was also born that night--equal in potency to activism but far less considered: Gay Partyism. While activism lived by day, partyism danced by night, manifesting itself in the Saint, circuit parties, openly gay bars, clubs, bathhouses and brazenly public gay sex. Gay Partyism also took to the streets and has been there ever since. One might argue that the building that housed New York's original gay mega-club, The Saint ,has as much (if not more) landmark status as the Stonewall Inn.

While Gay activism reflected the militancy of Black Power, Feminism and the anti-war movement, Gay partyism reflected the free love, psychedelic drugs and sense of celebration that was born out of the less militant side and pacifist side of the anti-war movement, Flower Power. And gay partyism also gave expression to the rather sudden freedom that allowed gay men to openly celebrate being queer and to simply kiss in the light of day.

And unlike the militant movements, Flower Power and Hippies comfortably welcomed and celebrated their gay brethren. In fact, for a brief and wonderful moment, the sexual revolution preached the beauty and wonder of sexual diversity, neither gay nor straight. For a fleeting second many hoped and dreamed that we were soon to see an end to the artificiality of sexual categories. Of course, that never happened.

The 70s were a remarkable and unique time in gay history. So much was accomplished and so much was changed. Gay activism for civil rights flourished as never before or since. But then gay activism was horribly and tragically side-tracked by a terrible epidemic.

And as a result of AIDS, today's younger generations of gay men and women mostly remember the 70s for the sex and they mostly focus on just half of the legacy of that magical decade: Gay partyism. Today's young gay New Yorker asks, "What happened to that club?" rather than "What happened to the protests?"

AIDS, as we all know, manifested a sea change in a newly emerging gay culture during the 80s, but this sea change washed away much more than just unconditional and uninhibited sex, it effectively washed away the remarkable activism that had been born in 1969.

Gay Partyism survived the AIDS crisis, obviously changed by the epidemic but still with all rainbow colors flying. Gay Activism did not fare so well.

One of my favorite political bloggers who I will not drag into this by name recently told me that it is his belief that Gay activism was fueled by the AIDS epidemic and driven by an affluent white demographic: successful, wealthy and in many cases celebrated white men who were forced out of the closet by the disease and were left with no choice but to fight.

But once AIDS, thanks to advances in science and care giving, changed for this demographic from a death sentence to a chronic disease, they drifted from demonstrations, anger and protests to gala fund-raisers, parties and parades. In celebrating their survival, the survivors became much more cautious about the dangers and risks of activism. Activism became polite and civilized "advocacy." Activism abandoned the energy and emotion of the streets and the smoke-filled bars and transformed into professional advocacy in air-conditioned offices and corporate conference rooms.

While an angry queer in a T-shirt and jeans may have iconically symbolized the Gay activism of the 70s, by the end of the 90s, gay advocacy was symbolized by a well-groomed gay man in a blue suit and tie, adept at negotiating his way through the corporate labyrinth.

From a media point of view at least, this proved to be damaging to our cause. Blue suits and board rooms make for lousy stories and even worse visuals. So the media turned their cameras from angry queers to sequined drag queens and Go-go boys. Before Stonewall, the media stereotype was the hairdresser and flamboyant interior decorator; post Stonewall and for too short of time, the iconic stereotype because the angry gay activist in T-shirt and jeans. Today the media darling is the mostly naked muscle boy and a drag queen in her nine-inch stilettos..

But the fall of Gay activism is much more complex and disturbing than that. In fact, I think the notion that gay activism was fueled by the AIDS crisis is a complete mischaracterization of the facts. Rather, gay activism was hijacked and eventually became one the most tragic and most overlooked victims of the AIDS crisis.

The fight for gay rights had been brewing for many years before Stonewall, underground and in the closet, but active and growing. Gay activists succeeded in making Illinois the first state to decriminalize homosexuality in 1962. Gay activists staged an open demonstration for civil rights in front of Philadelphia's Independence Hall in 1965.

But it all came to a head on June 27, 1969 when a few queers in a Greenwich Village bar said enough is enough. Gay activism wasn't born that night, but it did come out of the closet screaming like an angry drag queen.

As a result, as we moved through the 70s, Gay activism flourished and shattered many barriers and opened many doors. Gay rights associations formed on college campuses across the nation. And it was this spirit of activism that rallied our community in the early 80s and spearheaded the battle against AIDS.

Unfortunately, AIDS quickly overwhelmed and ultimately derailed the fight for civil rights and equality. Understandably the battle now necessarily focused on medications, research, care giving, housing, food, clothing and compassion for those in dire need.

Having accomplished much during the late 80s and 90s in the fight against AIDS, the white affluent gay community and its celebrity friends, older, tempered by AIDS and left somewhat sullen moved on to gala dinners, celebrity endorsements, self-congratulation, beach parties and lavish Pride Parades focused on how fabulous and beautiful we are. And we are.

But by the end of the 90s, with so much accomplished in the battle against AIDS, the fight for civil rights and equality seemed less important than a celebration of survival and life. The fight for civil rights, the centerpiece of the gay world in the 1970s has now become the "responsibility" of a sorely under-funded and tiny minority.

In the 1950s many white Christian Americans still considered "Negroes" to be sub-human and incapable of working and living like civilized people. Inter-racial marriage was illegal in many states. These same virtuous and high-minded Americans also believed that women belonged in the home, blindly obedient to their fathers and husbands; after all women were obviously less intelligent and less skilled than men. Homosexuals were mentally ill at best and more likely evil perverts.

Blacks and women came out of the 60s and 70s completely reinvented. We look back at Amos & Andy and the mothers of Leave it to Beaver and Father Knows with Best with a mixture of horror, embarrassment and laughter.

We wonder about a world where Samantha abandoned limitless power to become a dutiful and subservient wife.

We can't even imagine a world in which Black entertainers couldn't share a table in most restaurants or sleep in the same hotels as whites.

Obviously racism and sexism are not dead in America, but the advances made by Black Americans and women in the arena of civil rights and discrimination have been monumental

The story is very different for queer America. We badly fell behind.

Now don't through a hissy fit--at least not yet. I love me a good dose of Speedoed muscle boys, a ride down 5th Avenue on a huge hog mastered by some mountainous lesbian and as for drag queens? They are the SWAT team of gay liberation.

And I don't want any of that to go any where other than straight down Fifth Avenue in all of its mad and colorful diversity.

I understand that sit-ins, be-ins, protest marching and mass political demonstrations are so 60s retro. And today, these techniques are more successfully used by fundamentalists, the extreme rights and the immigration rights movement. Queers have returned to the methods of the 1950s--blue suits and polite conversations behind closed doors. But that's not what the Founding Fairies envisioned.

The immigration rights movement achieved more over a period of several days with nationally-coordinated mass demonstrations and the threat of a national work stoppage than the gay rights movement has achieved in a decade of polite negotiations. I look forward to Pride each year, but I miss Stonewall more and more. I will be accused of raining on the Parades, but Pride has a profound and critical political origin and should be much more about changing America for the better than just about throwing the biggest party of the year. In fact, until we have federal laws that protect our right to sit by a dying spouse in a hospital, protect us from workplace and housing discrimination and allow us to build loving families with the full rights and privileges enjoyed by straight couples, partying with so much work yet to be done seems a little adolescent. Yes, we've achieved remarkable visibility, but visibility didn't end slavery, segregation or give women the right to vote.