PRIDE AND PREJUDICE
It’s been 37 years since a handful of participants bravely marched in Edmonton’s first Pride Festival parade, originally a protest of police raids on gay bathhouses that has turned into a celebration of inclusion and acceptance for a persecuted minority group.
But unlike the weekend’s cheery parade on Whyte Avenue, the march of societal attitudes in those four decades when it comes to tolerance and understanding has been halting — two steps forward and one step back.
But this year, the flare-up of unexpected controversies and the resulting backlash hardly instils pride in how far we’ve come.
Sadly, even the rainbow Pride flag meant to symbolize diversity and tolerance incited divisiveness and hostility among Albertans instead.
On the weekend, a Canadian Pride flag — a banner combining the Maple Leaf and rainbow bars — raised at Lillian Osborne High School on Friday was cut down a few hours later as it flew on the mast. On Wednesday, the principal at Blessed Oscar Romero told students to tear down banners and wash off sidewalk paint intended to celebrate Pride Week for LGBTQ students and staff. The principal apologized and the school board blamed a miscommunication for the controversy but whatever the circumstances, there was no mistaking the aftermath of hate-filled comments that seeped into social media and news comment sections.
The Canadian Pride banner has especially enraged some commenters who accuse it of desecrating the Canadian flag, as if it was somehow treasonous to show pride in one’s country and community at the same time. If adopting the Maple Leaf in a design shows disrespect to the nation, then we had better stop flying Air Canada, shopping at Canadian Tire or watching the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Meanwhile, a Wildrose Party member who invited fellow party members to support him at a Pride Run was bombarded by homophobic emails in reply. Cody Johnston also received messages of support from Wildrose members, MLAs and party leader Brian Jean, but the flareup of intolerance can’t be good public relations for the province’s two conservative parties as they consider unifying under a big-tent alliance.
Other hateful comments spewed when the Edmonton Public Library’s Strathcona branch hosted the city’s first-ever Over the Rainbow Storytime session that saw drag queens reading picture books to kids.
That the simple, well-meaning acts of raising a flag, decorating a sidewalk, running in a charity race or reading to children could erupt into such partisan controversies during this year’s Edmonton Pride Festival shows how much we need this event to continue and expand.