Saturday, June 1, 2019

Happy Pride Month 2019!

June is LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transexual) Pride Month to commemorate the Stonewall riots, which occurred at the end of June 1969 (look for my annual blog posting about this important date on the 28th). It's been FIFTY YEARS!

Why Pride?

Despite the fact that Pete Buttigieg, an out and proud and well adjusted and brilliantly smart gay man is running for President of the United States (I am all in for President Pete, and I urge you to visit his site here and donate), we still have a tremendous problem with homophobia here and around the world. Pride Month is a positive stance against the daily shame, social stigma, discrimination, and violence that the LGBT community still faces not only here in the United States (gay children are routinely kicked out of their homes and disowned by their families, gay kids and teens and young adults are routinely bullied or attacked or beaten and many end up committing suicide because they are told they are sick or going to hell, and many gay men and women are attacked and beaten and murdered--sometimes in their own homes) but especially in unfortunately backward places around the world where gay men and women are routinely tortured and slaughtered--sometimes by government-sanctioned assassins.

Because the LGBT Pride celebration is about the right of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and transgendered individuals to exist without being prosecuted, persecuted, or murdered, not about "not being straight."

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