Out of curiosity I would like to get thoughts from a larger base of people about what you think of the theme chosen by the Boston Pride committee for this year’s Boston Pride. For disclosure I must admit that I am not in favor of the theme, and have posted much on the matter at queertoday.com.
—-boston pride 2007 theme——
Ask. Tell.
Proud to Serve Our Community, Our Country, Our World.
The LGBT community is an integral part of society at every level of organization: community, country, and the world. We are your doctors, lawyers, teachers, leaders, engineers, custodians, bankers, and bakers. We our proud of our service and we are happy to share our lives with you. Just ask, and we’ll tell! Please consider this theme when building your float and organizing your parade contingent — an award will be given to the group that adapts this theme best in the parade!
kbusch says
This is a banal slogan. It reminds me of the AFL-CIO slogan for their march on Washington during the Reagan era. When opposing Reagan was very important to everything unions stood for, they choose “We can do it!” Stirring.
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“Don’t ask, don’t tell” has certainly been a failure, and the latest polling of the military shows that we might, with a Democratic Congress, get its overturning passed in a bill, but it’s certainly not high up on the political agenda now. Perhaps we could choose a slogan that’s a little less 1994?
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When I came to Boston, we had Gay Pride Marches. Later, they became Lesbian and Gay Pride Marches. They ended up as Gay Pride Parades. The days of shouting, “What do we want? Gay rights!! When do we want them? Now!!” have passed.
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The hot political topic is marriage equality. I think a theme that emphasizes that would be great. Maybe “We support marriage!” Then use the ambiguity. First, we mean we support marriage equality. Second, we might say that we support our alliances with other groups and movements. We are in a sense “married” to the progressive wing of the Democratic party, to the progressive voices in the Afro-American community (think Derick Jackson, Byron Rushing, Diane Wilkerstein), and to the women’s movement. Third, we actually support straight marriage. By making a thing about how we support straight marriage, we can emphasize in a fun, ironic, easy-to-get-onto-TV-news way how unfair the opposition is.