MA Governor to be in Gay Pride Parade with Daughter

[DoubtingStephen]

The 18 year old daughter of Massachusetts Governor Patrick Duval has come out as a lesbian and her father has announced that he will march with his daughter in the Gay Pride Parade in Boston this Sunday, June 15, 2008.

Governor Duval is on record as a staunch supporter of equal rights for all citizens of the Bay State, quite an upgrade from a previous governor whose name need not be mentioned.

Katherine recalls coming out to her parents as they prepared for a picnic by the pool at their home in the Berkshires. It was July 3, 2007 at around 2:30 p.m., she says.

"You remember the date?" the governor inquires, eyebrows raised. In a telephone interview, Diane Patrick, who had planned to attend the interview with her husband and Katherine but got caught in traffic on a return trip from Providence, R.I., expressed similar surprise at Katherine’s detailed memory.

(link)

IMHO the Governor has got what we like to call Family Values™ as is evidenced by the way he values the members of his family.

Katherine Duval also related her sense of pride in her father, recalling his celebration when a proposed Constitutional ban to restrict the civil rights of gay and lesbian citizens was defeated. She indicated that this event took place before she came out to her parents.

I'm glad to know that the people of Massachusetts are being governed by a man who knows what is important. Way to go, Duval family!

 

[Sefarst]

Good for him. It'd be nice for America to wake up and realize that these are civil rights issues. I'm always surprised that there aren't really any public champions of this cause, given that there are millions of people still alive today who know what its like to be treated as second-class citizens.

 

[BPSCG]

I've don't understand why someone should be proud of being gay, or black, or white, or left-handed, or anything else one has no control over.

 

[DoubtingStephen]

I've don't understand why someone should be proud of being gay, or black, or white, or left-handed, or anything else one has no control over.

Beeps, I understand your comment, it is one that is often heard. It is a reaction to being told that you should be ashamed of being gay. Folks are saying, no, I will not be ashamed of who I am. Perhaps in part the pride comes from being willing to face down bigotry in one's own life.

I had a life changing event at the San Francisco Gay Pride Parade in 1992, the year I arrived in California, when along with a close friend I persuaded 3 San Francisco police officers to step through a "closet door" he had made, thus symbolically coming out of the closet.

In the process I lost my voice, then later I stayed up all night writing a short story that appeared in a minor South Bay gay newspaper. It is still online on my very first (and atrociously ugly) website, if you'd care to read it.

Photo:

Story:
http://www.fagnits.com/catalog/closet.html

(it's not very good)

 

[Ladewig]

I've don't understand why someone should be proud of being gay, or black, or white, or left-handed, or anything else one has no control over.

A gay minister I know told me that when society display anger and disgust toward a group of people, then their announcing their pride is one way to deflect the negative emotions. You named a list of qualities that folks have no control over; but on that list, homosexuality is the only one that people can hide from others. Gay pride events can be one way to communicate to younger folks that one should "be true to one's school."

That being said, I am a bit confused as to why some guy walking down the street wearing nothing but a rainbow condom is an appropriate way to celebrate one's culture, heritage, and contributions to society.

 

[BPSCG]

Beeps, I understand your comment, it is one that is often heard. It is a reaction to being told that you should be ashamed of being gay. Folks are saying, no, I will not be ashamed of who I am. Perhaps in part the pride comes from being willing to face down bigotry in one's own life.

I understand where that comes from, but there's a difference between not being ashamed of being gay and being proud of it.

Misplaced pride is not just silly - it's counterproductive, it's self-destructive, just as much as misplaced shame is. You see it being taught in elementary schools as some misbegotten attempt to instill self-esteem in kids. They pump the kids up with how wonderful they are, fill them up with lies about how they can do anything as long as they believe it (even if they can't read or write), and tell them they are worthy of respect (but not that respect has to be earned). The result is a generation of kids who don't know anything but think they're the greatest thing since the invention of the wheel.

I used to work with a deaf guy. He had a deaf wife, and, not surprisingly, their kid was deaf. He had a decal stuck over his desk that bragged, "I'm Proud That My Child Goes To (I forget the name) School for The Deaf."

Got it? He's not proud of his kid for any accomplishment, but simply for the fact that the kid is enrolled in some school for deaf kids.

You see, year after year, that American kids score lower in every area of math and science than European and Asian kids, but they consistently score better than their foreign counterparts in one area: estimation of their own abilities.

So, yeah, I'm fed up with "gay pride" and "black pride." It's a way of saying, "Look up to me, because I've accomplished something special," when in fact all you did was get born with a certain combination of genes.

I'm proud that I have brown eyes.

You write better today than you did in 1992, BTW. Be proud of that.

 

[DoubtingStephen]

You write better today than you did in 1992, BTW. Be proud of that.

Thank you

 

[Terry]

I understand where that comes from, but there's a difference between not being ashamed of being gay and being proud of it.

"Gay not ashamed parade" lacks a certain je ne sais quoi though.

 

[DoubtingStephen]

"Gay not ashamed parade" lacks a certain je ne sais quoi though.

I see you speka ze French. Want to see my gay pride T-shirts?

 

[Terry]

I see you speka ze French. Want to see my gay pride T-shirts?

what, you think I'll fall for that A SECOND TIME?

 

[DoubtingStephen]

They are verra nice.

 

[Ian Osborne]

what, you think I'll fall for that A SECOND TIME?

 

[Ian Osborne]

Ultimately, beeps is right, but as Stephen says, gay 'pride' is reasserting a group of people's civil rights and celebrating the fact that being born gay - which is neither an achievement nor a crime - is not something one should be ashamed of. When gay pride has done its job, then we can take the realistic position that being gay is of no more significance than having brown eyes. Until then, it's a useful reaction to misplaced prejudice.

 

[BPSCG]

Ultimately, beeps is right,

News of the tautological...

but as Stephen says, gay 'pride' is reasserting a group of people's civil rights and celebrating the fact that being born gay - which is neither an achievement nor a crime - is not something one should be ashamed of. When gay pride has done its job, then we can take the realistic position that being gay is of no more significance than having brown eyes.

No, you should take it now. It's evidence of a mature attitude. It's a healthy way of thinking that doesn't fill one's mind up with invalid ideas - good or bad - of one's own self-worth based on genetic chance. Misplaced pride in your sexual orientation or eye color is no justification for asserting your civil rights, any more than misplaced shame of your sexual orientation or eye color is justification for waiving your civil rights. Your civil rights, or lack of them, flow from the fact that you live in America, not from how you feel about batting right-handed or left-handed (or being a switch-hitter...).

In the fight for civil rights, as in any fight, it is important that you neither overestimate nor underestimate your opponents' strengths and weaknesses. It is also important that you neither overestimate nor underestimate your own. Misplaced shame and misplaced pride do exactly that. Face the world with a clear eye and a clear mind, not with delusions that your genes somehow determine what you and others should think about yourself.

Until then, it's a useful reaction to misplaced prejudice.

There will always be misplaced prejudice, and not just against gays, but against every single person on this earth (there are people who hate you, for example, just for your religion or lack thereof). And there's nothing you can do about it. But you can at least make sure your own head is screwed on straight.

Anyone recall ever seeing a "Jewish Pride" march in New York City? I didn't think so.

Come on, you Hebes, are you with me?

Say it loud!
I'm Jew and Proud!
Say it loud!
I'm Jew and Proud!
Say it loud!
I'm Jew and Proud!

 

[ponderingturtle]

I understand where that comes from, but there's a difference between not being ashamed of being gay and being proud of it.

I am not at all sure that the issues you have with people with misplaced pride is really relevent to pride parrade.


Why not take issue with the 4th of july and all that "Proud to Be an American" stuff?

It is about group solidarity and parties and I don't really have a problem with that.

 

[Cleon]

Anyone recall ever seeing a "Jewish Pride" march in New York City? I didn't think so.

Uh...Click here. We've had "Jewish Pride"-themed events since I was a little yidlet.

As someone wiser than I once said:

"I'm a kike, a yid, a heebie, a hook-nose, I'm kosher mum, I'm a Red Sea pedestrian, and proud of it!"

 

[BPSCG]

I am not at all sure that the issues you have with people with misplaced pride is really relevent to pride parrade.


Why not take issue with the 4th of july and all that "Proud to Be an American" stuff?

I was wondering if someone would bring up just that complaint.

I am not proud to be an American. That's accident of birth, as well (though I suppose it's not as immutable as my sexual orientation).

I'm grateful to be an American.

I'm proud of what America has done, what it stands for, and maybe I'm a little proud of what small part I play in making America the wonderful country that it is.

But proud just to be an American, when the only thing I did to be an American was to be born here? Why should I be?

 

[BPSCG]

Uh...Click here. We've had "Jewish Pride"-themed events since I was a little yidlet.

As someone wiser than I once said:

"I'm a kike, a yid, a heebie, a hook-nose, I'm kosher mum, I'm a Red Sea pedestrian, and proud of it!"

So when's the next Moses Day Parade down Fifth Avenue, with Mayor Bloomberg kicking it off while eating a ceremonial plate of gefilte fish and Jewish babes tossing dreidels and latkes to the crowd from floats emblazoned with the slogan, "Hebes Are Hot!" and...

If SF is the cultural center of America's gay community, then New York is the center of its Jewish community. So where's that great big Moses Day Jewish Pride Parade?

 

[ImaginalDisc]

Uh...Click here. We've had "Jewish Pride"-themed events since I was a little yidlet.

As someone wiser than I once said:

"I'm a kike, a yid, a heebie, a hook-nose, I'm kosher mum, I'm a Red Sea pedestrian, and proud of it!"

You mean BPSCG was foolishly and bombabstically ignorant, and said something so wrong that two seconds of preemptive Goggling would have saved him face?

Wake me when there's news.

 

[Ian Osborne]

So when's the next Moses Day Parade down Fifth Avenue, with Mayor Bloomberg kicking it off while eating a ceremonial plate of gefilte fish and Jewish babes tossing dreidels and latkes to the crowd from floats emblazoned with the slogan, "Hebes Are Hot!" and...

So celebrations of group identity don't count as misplaced pride unless they're a parody of gay pride parades?