Of Pride and Of Prejudice

Finally, we had a chance to go over to St. Petersburg for their ever-growing Pride festival. It's supposedly grown into Florida's largest (though I'd dispute the 70,000-100,000 pre-event attendance estimates — perhaps they're including all attendees at various events throughout the month). We enjoyed ourselves, despite baking in the late-June Florida heat as we endured (and enjoyed) the nearly-three-hour-long Promenade (a.k.a. "parade"). Photographic proof here (albeit in reverse order — sorry, but that requires effort I'm not up to tonight).

The parade was but one of the things we enjoyed in the Bay Area. We went to a comedy show the night previous, as well as a stop in at Wranglers. I'm no big fan of country music, but I am a big fan of the men who are fans of country music … and so I endure as necessary to watch them two-stepping and line-dancing their way around the floor.

We watched a dance of a different kind before and during the parade. Even as we were just pulling off I-275 in the Kenwood area, we saw our first religious-message protester, acting as a greeter as cars came down the off-ramp. Along the parade/vendor fair route, we encountered a few of his ilk here or there. Rather than argue with them, however, parade staff had a much simpler solution — one that didn't directly violate the protesters' ability to speak. It just limited their ability to be heard: the staff carried air horns, which were used (along with the volume of music from the main stage) to drown out the protesters' words. They were left with little more than the banners they carried, and their simple physical presence. Neither were generally effective. (And to put it in perspective, of the thousands of parade attendees, there were perhaps 10 protesters at most.)

I really liked the air-horn approach, honestly. It would be hard to advocate equal protection under the law while outright denying others access to their rights (such as free speech) by attempting to have the protesters removed. The encounters we witnessed provided intriguing lunchtime conversation afterward, too. One person wondered aloud why the protesters wasted their time, to which I countered that they likely believe that if even one attendee gave thought to their position, their time was worthwhile to them. This, in turn, led to a comment on how effectively brain-washed these people were to believe such a thing.

Hold on a minute.

Don't we often hear that coming out, even to one person, has the power to change the heart and mind of that person? That the battle for equality is ultimately won one person at a time, by making the most of teachable moments with those we know and encounter, day by day? Why is it, then, that when the same method is used, essentially, by those who oppose — admittedly, in a rather more heavy-handed approach, using bullhorns and banners instead of smiles and living testimony?

Make no mistake, I'm not saying that those who oppose equality on the grounds of a narrow-minded interpretation of faith and tradition are in the right. Being fed a clear answer to the "why" and "how" of life is a truly powerful thing, and that power has all too often been used for ill gain (regardless of intent). But I find it pretty easy to understand that the protesters and the parade participants were, in many ways, working off two sides of the same coin or modified versions of the same script … that their methods were, to an extent, children of a common parent.