Photo Of The Week: The Last Week In June 1970 That Is

Two men ‘flip the bird’ at the Central Park crowd that’s formed as they compete in the kissing contest during New York’s inaugural Gay Pride celebration on 28 June 1970.

From Jean-Pierre Laffont's Photographer's Paradise: Turbulent America 1960-1990 via Guardian Online.

Facebook Pride: Adorable!

The Advocate.

I bet all the angry queers who rioted at Stonewall didn't dare dream we'd see such an epoch-making - and ADORABLE - day!

Facebook - putting the PR back into Pride.

'How little pleasure most people need to make them find life good, how modest man is!' Nietzsche.

Number of search results for 'adorable' on The Advocate website - 502.

On Queerty - 579.

On Gay Star News - 114, but they ain't been going long.*

And yes, they're usually barftastic sentimental stories involving marriage or kids or both.

Any gay journalist who files a story about something 'adorable' deserves to have their hands drop off.

* Couldn't get Pink News' search engine to work, Towleroad had over 5000 (!) but that included readers' comments. I could have also done searches for things 'that will warm your heart!' but was worried about choking on my own vomit.

Andy Warhol: Gay Pride 1976-1987

From a collection of Andy's photos at The Photographers' Gallery, London.
There is a separate simultaneous exhibition of William Burroughs' photos.

PS Oh, and David Lynch.

Pride: Start Here

First Gay Marches to Commemorate Stonewall: 1970.

The actual Stonewall uprising received scant attention in the media. There were very few reporters there and only a bare handful of photos taken of the uprising as it occurred. But in the space of a year, Stonewall had already become a single word that meant more than just a run-down bar in the Village. Gay people across the country took June 28 as their own Independence Day with commemorative marches taking place in Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, and, of course, New York. The day was celebrated as “Christopher Street Liberation Day” for several years before Pride took over. (The day is still called CSD, or Christopher Street Day, in Germany.) One of the more interesting articles to appear in the mainstream media for those first Christopher Street Liberation Day marches was a brief description of the parade up Christopher Street itself on June 28, 1970 that appeared in July 11 edition of The New Yorker:

A number of policemen were standing around, looking benevolent and keeping an eye on things. Many of the marchers were carrying banners that identified them as members of homosexual organizations, like the Gay Liberation Front, the Mattachine Society, and the Gay Activists Alliance. The symbol of the G.A.A. is a lambda, which physicists use as a symbol for wavelength, and many of the kids were wearing purple T-shirts with yellow lambdas on them.

Most of the marchers chatted in anticipatory tones, and a few reporters were among them looking for interviews. One approached two boys standing together and asked them the question that reporters always ask: “How do you feel?”

One of the boys said, “I feel proud.”

At the head of the parade, one boy stood carrying the American flag. Near him stood a man talking to another man. “Homosexuals are very silly,” said the first man. “They congregate in certain areas and then spend all other time walking up and down the street ignoring each other.”

While “Pride” was still several years ago, you can already see that “pride” was already the operative word for the day. The author (whose name is not given) reported that marchers carried signs reading “Homosexual is not a four letter word,” “Latent Homosexuals Unite!” and “Hi Mom!” Anti-gay protesters were there as well, one with a sign reading simply “Sodom + Gomorrah.” But despite a few sour notes, the parade was more than just a success: it was cathartic for some:

An eighteen-year-old boy from Long Island who was marching in the middle of the parade with his arms around two friends said, “I’ve been up since six-thirty, I was so excited I couldn’t sleep. I wasn’t going to come, but then I figured I’m gay and I might as well support my people. So here I is!” Sometimes the marchers addressed the onlookers. “Join us!” they called, and “Come on in, the water’s fine!” They got a few grins for this, and once or twice somebody did step out from the crowd to join the parade. These people were roundly cheered by the marchers. Just south of Central Park, a well-dressed middle-aged woman on the sidewalk flashed a V-sign. A marcher, a young man with a mustache, shouted to a cop, also a young man with a mustache, “It isn’t so bad, is it?” The cop shouted back, “No!”

As the parade entered the Park, a young marcher said, “Would you believe it! It looks like an invading army. It’s a gay Woodstock. And after all those years I spent in psychotherapy!”

A friend of his laughed and said, “What will your shrink do without you? He’s dependent on you for the payments on his car.”

Via the ever excellent and informative Box Turtle Bulletin.

Update: Nice collection of photos from early US prides on, err, Mail Online, with patronising right-on captions that read like they were written for a student magazine.
As ever, some great readers' comments; "Sin on parade... disgusting." etc.

Cuba: Gay Pride/Straight Propaganda

Cuba held a Gay Pride yesterday.
Wow!
It's hard to know what really happened - and why - after reading the usual right-wing goonery.
"...and the U.S. State Department is planning to spend $300,000 this year to help the LGBT community in Cuba."
Like fuck it does.
If you believe that you'll believe anything!

Update: Think The Independent was the only UK paper to cover this; Is This Cuba's Stonewall Moment? Odd title...

The Real Brighton Pride: Beneath The Pavement, The Beach!

"I certainly will not be going to anything the so-called 'Official Pride' have miserably mismanaged this year...
"I've met friends in the street who have said that they intend to help take over the whole of the beach eastwards of the Palace Pier, all the way to the Marina this year with our fabulous rainbow flag stretched out across the shingle for as far as it can go.
"We can entertain ourselves as we always did at the end of the original Gay Pride marches in London in the early 1970s. We can party all day long and if everyone tunes into the same radio station we can have our music too. We can feed ourselves by bringing our own picnic foods. We can pee in the sea if necessary. We do that anyway.
"We don't have to use the beach; there are dozens of local parks we can also use for local picnics. We never had to ask anyone's permission in the 1970s when we still illegal, so why should we 40 years later...
"We can also reclaim some of our colourful but peacefully anarchic roots.
"Many of our lovers and friends have died since the UK's initial eruption of gay sensibilities, from the LSE four decades ago. Let's celebrate their lives and sacrifices this year with one fabulous, unscripted, uncensored, glorious day out on our very beaches and smaller parks.
"Reclaim our history, give those wonderful younger gays a a different kind of day out to remember...
"At the age of 70 I look forward to many more gay and proud moments here in this lovely city of Brighton.
"Lots of out and proud gay love to everyone."

Michael James.
Letter to Gscene magazine, May 2011.

Excellent stuff.
I hope people will join Michael James in turning their backs on the "official" Brighton Pride - now it has turned its back on the very principles on which Gay Pride was founded.
Fuck 'em - you don't need permission for anything.
On the weekend of Saturday August 13th, let's take over our gay village in Kemptown, our parks, our beach, and our city.
And let's reclaim our Pride.
Nothing can stop us!

Gay Pride: Gays Shamed

Today is Gay Pride in London.
Expect the papers tomorrow to print ludicrous over estimations of the people who attended - half a million will be popular, even if it's more like 40,000.
Also expect any piece to be accompanied by a picture of a drag queen, like The Guardian's preview today - as shown above.
Why?
It's not a celebration of cross-dressing, but a sign that picture editors still think gay men and lesbians may not be out, so they will only show them in drag disguise.
A photo of two men embracing, but shot from the back is also popular.
Which rather defeats the idea of Gay Pride, don't you think?