Sarah J. Blige

The streets were alive with pride in Vancouver as an estimated 700,000 spectators flocked to the streets for the annual gay pride parade. From feather boa and sequin-clad drag queens to Jack Layton and several NDP supporters to the Beacon Unitarian Church, thousands of enthusiastic paraders strutted their stuff through the streets of downtown in the name of equality, not to mention fabulousness.

Once I got over the initial irritation of having to look over the shoulders of dozens of fellow parade-goers to get a view of the flashy floats, I was incredibly pleased to see such an enormous turnout. The crowd was formed by people from all walks of life, with conservative-looking middle-aged men and modestly-dressed old ladies mingling with the likes of flamboyant LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) supporters and dashing gentlemen in scanty skivvies. It was an inspirational display of togetherness and support within the community and an uplifting reminder of the progress that has been made with the gay rights movement.

Lovely ladies, photo courtesy of http://www.vancouverpride.ca/

It was refreshing to see a heterosexual politician playfully dance around with his cowboy hat in the air, but I had to remind myself that Canadians are particularly tolerant and accepting folk and there are still many countries where the gay community is stifled rather than celebrated; we’ve come so far but still have a long way to go.

Homosexuality is considered criminal and gay pride parades are banned in many parts of the world. In Russia, gay pride parades, which Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov has dubbed “satanic gatherings”, are deemed unlawful. 40 of around 70 activists were arrested last May when they ignored the ban and proceeded with their demonstration. Two organisers of Moscow Gay Pride were arrested earlier this year for holding banners in the city centre and charged with “propaganda of homosexuality”. As if criminalising the right to peaceful protests or demonstrations isn’t bad enough, far more serious human rights violations continue to exist in the international gay community.

Homosexual and transgender people are frequently discriminated against, harassed and even tortured and murdered on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity. In Iraq, police commandos and militants are encouraged by clerics to murder any suspected homosexuals. There are many accounts of gay men being arrested, tortured and gang raped by groups of police officers, and the U.N. released a report in January of this year citing the existence of religious courts that sentence accused homosexuals to death. In 2005, leading Shiite Muslim cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani issued a religious decree stating that gay and lesbian individuals should be punished and killed in “the most severe way”. It is also not uncommon for Iraqi homosexuals to be disowned and often murdered by those closest to them to avoid shaming their family name.

Fabulously fierce

I’m not trying to put a dark cloud over the festive showing of support for the LGBT community in Vancouver – the sky was, in fact, filled with rainbows – but I think it’s important to remember that discrimination and abuse based on sexual orientation still occur worldwide and there are thousands of citizens who are denied the basic human right of equality. Anti-gay bullying and violence still exist in thousands of schoolyards around the world, and even in a city as liberal as Vancouver, hate crimes continue to occur. Gay rights are human rights, and equality should be universal.

The purpose of gay pride parades is to raise awareness and encourage the heterosexual majority to accept and embrace the LGBT community. The themes of this year’s gay pride parade in Vancouver were “educate, liberate, celebrate”, and those goals were certainly accomplished. The general feeling among the crowd was “be as gay as you like, we love you all the same.”