Parade

Today Peter and I will be filming the 40th anniversary Gay Pride Parade here in Boston. As one of the few surviving native Bostonians who will be there, I feel somewhat sentimental about it.

The first parade, in which I marched, was such a humble and courageous statement of gay men and lesbians, who risked life and limb to walk self-consciously down the streets of an American city as openly homosexual people. The second and third parades, more widely publicized, were marked by homophobic hecklers and thugs who threw bottles, bricks and trash at us. The Boston Police on duty smirked and looked the other way.

But, we kept coming back, year after year, thanks to the many volunteers who put the march together each June. The city's Irish-Catholic politicians finally understood that GLBTQ people in Boston would not go away. This is truly an American story, one in which I can take some pride. Massachusetts is now the beacon for gay marriage rights in the country.

I will carry the memories of so many of my peers who are not able to attend the Pride Parade today. This is another parade, a parade of those who suffered through disease and isolation with dignity, despite being seen as lepers by straight society and by many whom they had helped to liberate. I carry their banner by standing erect and carrying my aging frame with dignity. While my presence at 60 is seldom acknowledged or appreciated in my community, I know that it is important for the young men and women around me to see that self-respecting GLBTQ life does not end at forty.

My life has been flavored with marches for justice. I marched for peace. I marched for gay rights and other civil rights. It was good practice for the more difficult personal marches for my own survival that came over the years. So much of life is holding your head up high and placing one courageous foot in front of the other.