Happy Gay Pride Weekend!
We'll have our local gay pride parade here in Cherry Grove later this afternoon. The big annual
pride parade and event in New
York City has been in the news recently. Apparently, there are money concerns, and the
Pridefest after the parade will not take place this year because the
NYPD denied a permit for it to take place in Chelsea instead of in the Village. Some commentators wonder if these
pride celebrations are
relevant any more, or necessary given the state of the gay rights movement. I think that's the wrong question to ask. Yes, we have made progress toward equal rights, but not
because of parades. The progress we've made has been due to other factors including the hard work of gay activists and gay rights
organizations, and the very fact of our
visibility, not on the streets of New York and other cities once a year, but the daily
visibility of gays and lesbians leading their lives openly and honestly and out of the closet with family, friends, and on the job. So I'm ambivalent about the parades. I used to go many years regularly, but not any more. If young people find them affirming then why not? But they are essentially parties, and any benefit to the community's struggle for equality comes as a side effect. They can't take the place of the hard political work that
still needs to be done.
I ran into my friend Charlie
Isola yesterday downtown at the Cherry Grove Post Office. Charlie read my post a couple of days ago on the subject of the importance of focusing on preserving the Cherry Grove Community House. Charlie told me that's what the
CGCAI's (Community Association) "Benefactor's Fund" is for. He also emphasized that it is the Property Owner's Association (
CGPOA) that is working on the Top Of The Bay property issue, and not the Community
Association (
CGCAI), which are two
separate organizations. Of course, the board of the Property Owner's Association is appointed by the board of the Community Association so they are connected. I
remain highly
skeptical of any plan to have residents pick up the tab for years of neglect of Top Of The Bay by commercial interests who made their money in the structure while allowing the property to gradually deteriorate to its current state. Let the bank that holds the property figure out what to do with it. Perhaps someone in the downtown business community will step forward with a solution. Let the market work. I've heard the argument that a benefit of having the community acquire it and demolish it would be an increase in our property values. I'm skeptical of that claim as well. First of all, property values have been doing pretty well
on their own, having doubled or in some cases tripled in the last ten years. Second, I'm not convinced there is that much of a connection between the status of one downtown commercial property and residential property values. Third, who wants residential property values to go up even higher if that means our taxes will go up with them?
Jim
Yesterday I saw two high school age boys on the beach here In Cherry Grove. They were lying together on a blanket fully clothed but enjoying each other, doing some necking. One of the boys had a bicycle, the other did not. It's easy to speculate on how this scene came about. Perhaps they met on Facebook or some other online venue, and arranged a rendezvous in Cherry Grove, where they would feel comfortable expressing their affection for each other in public. Maybe the one with the bicycle came to the Grove from one of the communities to the West. He could have pedalled down from Ocean Beach or even (gasp!) Point Of Woods. The other young man could have arrived by ferry from Long Island. It stuck me that the Grove is still serving as an important venue for gays and lesbians to meet and feel comfortable. Perhaps this is not as important as it once was for adult gays, but for young people the Grove is a place where they can meet and feel comfortable away from the disapproval of family and peers. Seeing these two young gays on the beach yesterday really made me appreciate the uniqueness of Cherry Grove, which is easy to take for granted if you have lived here for any length of time.
