It Is Time For Pride in Pride!

Pride and why it matters

It is June and Pride month is upon us with a multitude of events, corporate outreach, and attention paid to the LGBTQ+ community both here in Iowa and across the country. This is an exciting time of the year with so much going on! June is a time to celebrate this community with fun events and historical education on the experiences of this community. Celebration is the right word too, as it is our diversity and acceptance of others that makes our society great, and celebrating our shared humanity is always a worthy cause!

Photo by Brian Kyed on Unsplash - Stock footage

However, it is not all celebration. Pride celebrates but also honors a community that has long been maligned and attacked in cultural, civic, and legal arenas. These attacks continue here with Iowa having the dubious honor of being first in the nation to remove civil rights protections from law. This is accompanied by other legislation aimed at removing the civil rights protections for this community alongside mockery and eye rolls from religious conservatives about the celebration of Pride. “Why do we need to celebrate this community?” they ask in frustrated tones whenever June rolls around each year, despite the repeated open and clear attacks by these religious groups time and time again.

Which brings us to what I would consider to be the most important part of Pride: the history of Pride. Pride was originally a breaking-out and standing-up against the oppression of queer people faced by law enforcement for decades. It began as a forceful, and yes violent, response to the violence and legal force used against this community for decades. Pride month gives us the opportunity to celebrate both the lived experiences and the history of the LGBTQ+ community even as we still feel the echoes of their oppression today. Echoes that still very much exist and impact that same community, and all of us, today.

Photo by Jennifer Bonauer on Unsplash

This history ought not be partisan or niche or even offensive to anyone – these are things that have happened, ARE happening our country. The LGBTQ+ community exists and has always existed since human beings have built societies because they- just like the person reading this - are all human beings. Gender and sexual expression began as soon as human beings had the concepts of gender and sexual expression. These concepts predate law, predate countries, and yes, predate religions and religious claims. Yet almost all the opposition to this community, from laws banning trans athletes to overturning same-sex marriage to even pathologizing same sex attraction, comes from those that use their religious convictions as the justification for ostracizing Pride month.

As an atheist and a humanist, I find there is no room or justification for this kind of othering of my fellow human beings. “All humans are born free and equal in dignity and respect” is a key aspect of the Universal Decleration of Human Rights. If we focus on the shared humanity and the shared human experience we will find there isn’t anything inherently immoral, deficient, or even different about the LGBTQ+ community. This Pride month we should renew our focus on celebrations and the history of this community and reject any forms of bigotry that have crept back into our common culture.

We are all human beings with the very human desire to live our lives freely and express ourselves without interference from others. Most especially this interference shouldn’t come from the government or the state where we are to be equal in the eyes of the law – no matter who we love or how we choose to express that love or ourselves. Join me and all other humanists in celebrating our community and our shared humanity this Pride! H

appy Pride Month!