Today (and this weekend) has been a curative for the sad, sad day a few weeks ago. To kick off our GLBTQ Pride Weekend, Kev and I attended not one, but two services marking the occasion and celebrating the lives of GLBTQ people. One was a small service off Christopher Street, planned by the NYC chapters of Lutherans Concerned and Integrity USA (an Episcopal group, which also keeps a blog). The other was an AIDS Memorial Mass, celebrated every year in one of the Village's Catholic parishes.
Then, after a wonderful Sunday afternoon church picnic with the people of Trinity, Kev and I headed to a Pride Parade of many firsts for both of us. For me, it was my first parade other than in CHI. For Kevin, it was his first real parade on Pride Weekend. For both of us, it was the first time going with a significant other. We were able to see almost all of the five hours of floats and groups. Most were colorful, many were boisterously fun, but I want to highlight FOUR groups that struck us as wonderful organizations that YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT AND SUPPORT:
- The Hetrick-Martin Institute, Home of the Harvey Milk High School, the first and largest school in the world dedicated to creating a safe, caring environment for at-risk LGBTQ youth. Their delegation in the parade were the most spirited and energized that I saw, bar none. I can't describe what it felt like to see how much things have changed in the gay generations since Stonewall.
- Aid for AIDS, an impressively competent organization that addresses the global AIDS crisis in a justice-making way: medication recycling, that is, collecting unexpired and still-viable AIDS medications from people who have a surplus of medication because they have changed their therapy, have discontinued their use, or have died, and making these drugs available to people with AIDS in Latin America, South America, the Caribbean, and Africa. This program militates against the disturbing complex of oppression and privilege in this country that sees AIDS as primarily a "gay disease." Such narrow vision was evident at the parade, where Aid for AIDS was the ONLY group I saw that represented AIDS as the GLOBAL pandemic (regardless of sexuality) that it is.
- God's Love We Deliver (GLWD), which certainly is more Christian than most Christian organizations I know, even though it has no specific religious affiliation. The group distributes nutritiously appropriate meals to people living with AIDS, and in another direction outside the at-times-hegemony of AIDS in the GLBTQ community, GLWD began two years ago serving meals to people with many kinds of serious illness who are unable to prepare their own meals.
- Identity House, a community of peer counselors and support services for GLBT adults. "Four nights a week, we offer low-fee counseling at our Walk-In Center for Peer Counseling. We also offer drop-in coming out groups, workshops and short-term groups on a wide variety of topics, social events, short-term counseling, information about other community services and organizations, and referrals to LGBT-identified or LGBT-affirmative psychotherapists" (from their website). The awesome thing about this organization is that it cultivates a whole community of peer support in the GLBTQ community, so that the whole community heals itself.
All these moments captured the splendor and struggle of a journey that for me began just over four years ago (really even before then).
Note: What a curious phrase. I wonder what a field day various post-modern theorists would have with Significant Other.
No comments:
Post a Comment