With the barbecues and parades of Memorial Day behind us, the summer has begun in earnest.
Time for fishing, trips to the beach, camping, vacations and family reunions, and, of course, festivals. This year, Ottawa has added a new celebration to the schedule: the Family Pride Festival, coming to Washington Square on Saturday, June 11.
The tradition of Pride goes back to the famous Stonewall Riot in New York City in June of 1969, when patrons of an underground gay bar fought back against a police raid. The following year, protest marches were organized in cities around the country around the anniversary of Stonewall as part of the movement for the liberation of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people. Those protests would eventually become parades, as local governments began to recognize the importance of the LGBT community, and the validity of their social and political concerns.
When I moved to San Francisco nearly 20 years ago, the annual Pride parade was already a major event. Thousands of people marched through downtown to the Castro neighborhood, the heart of the city’s LGBT community. And the parade was only the largest such celebration: there were several other annual LGBT-related festivals. People celebrated the legacy of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay person elected to government office in the United States, and commemorated the struggle against the HIV/AIDS epidemic of the late 20th century.
As someone raised in suburban Ohio in the 1980s and 90s, San Francisco’s embrace of the LGBT community was strange to me at first. But by the time I moved to Chicago three years later, gay culture felt like just another part of the social fabric. Working in a restaurant in Chicago’s Andersonville neighborhood, I would meet folks from small, Midwestern towns who were thrilled at the possibilities of a life “out of the closet,” so to speak. It was a reminder that the openness of big cities was the exception rather than the rule in this country.
It came as something of a surprise when the movement to legalize gay marriage gained steam, and eventually succeeded with the Supreme Court decision in the case of Obergefell v. Hodges in 2014. What had been a taboo subject in my youth had become mainstream. Millions of people gained freedom to live their lives as they see fit — to express themselves in public, to marry as they wish.
But what really surprised me was the openness I found when I moved to Ottawa in 2015. Although my own immediate family is as conventional as you please, many of our friends and neighbors are part of the local LGBT community. And I love my own children will grow up in a small, Midwestern town where same-sex couples as well as transgender people are just ordinary folks. Part of the world we live in, to be celebrated and loved like everyone else.
It is important, however, not to lose sight of the extraordinary efforts of social activists who led those protest marches into the mainstream with incredible bravery in the face of discrimination and legal oppression. The world is a bigger and better place because of their work, and I think that’s something worth celebrating. How wonderful to celebrate their love and courage right here in Ottawa.
Happy Pride!
- Samuel Barbour is a proud papa, loving life partner and amateur ukulele composer. A local economics professor, he muses on all things topical, within our community and abroad, affecting our daily lives. Questions and comments are fielded at newsroom@mywebtimes.com