Pride once more

It is June, which means that Pride month is here again. My post last year soon took another turn as a terrorist attacked a pair of pubs in downtown Oslo. Two people were killed, and a further twenty-one were wounded. As a result, Oslo Pride was largely cancelled. More recently, the organization Save the Children cancelled a Pride-event due to threats and harassment.

I have come to realize that not everyone knows or understands what Pride is all about. It’s honestly quite simple. It is about basic human rights. The right to define oneself, ones gender identity, and ones sexual preference. The right to love who one loves, and to be oneself, without the fear of ostracism, harassment, or punishment. It is, in other words, about this:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

United States Declaration of Independence

And yet, it happens to be that the LGBTQIA+ community are the targets of exactly these things, not to mention erasure and any number of claims that are offensive, bordering on libel. This is an untenable state of affairs.

I think it might also be worth it to remind ourselves that while Pride is a celebration, it is also very much a protest. The protest is an integral part of Pride. Pride started with the Stonewall riots, which are an integral part of Pride even today.

All of this is to say that the choice being between being an ally, doing nothing, or opposing them is to me no choice at all. I stand with my fellow human beings on the LGBTQIA+ spectrum.