Taking pride in not going to parades?

I didn’t go to the Pride Parade held Sunday. I’m also likely to ignore the slew of parades that will take place in a couple of weeks related to the upcoming Independence Day holiday.

The parade route I chose to ignore

None of this is intended as a political statement of any sorts. It’s actually that I just don’t get any enjoyment from the idea of a parade – regardless of what the event or cause is that’s being celebrated.

SOME PEOPLE LIKE the spectacle. They take a certain sense of glee from the largesse put on display to celebrate whatever cause happens to be the reason for a parade.

Personally, I find it to be a lot of noise and racket and standing around doing nothing while other people go marching by.

And quite frankly, if you’ve seen one parade, you’ve seen them all. There’s no reason to relive the experience.

So I didn’t feel compelled to head up to Boystown – that sub-neighborhood that combines with the Wrigleyville set (gay people wishing to live openly combined with Chicago Cubbies fans) to make the Lake View neighborhood one of Chicago’s most unique places to be.

NOR AM I eager to see what many may view as the anti-Pride parade – an Independence Day holiday filled with pomp and circumstance and lots of images of fireworks and explosions and much right-wing rhetoric.

Even though personally, I find much of that rhetoric to be a skewed view of what our nation is supposed to be about. In fact, a part of me thinks that the public spectacle that was the Pride Parade is about as “American” as we can get in the 21^st Century.

Even though with all its kitschy value of watching Chicago’s gay community come out into the open will bother some. That very “openness” and willingness to express oneself publicly is most definitely what we as a people are supposed to be about.

Although I’m sure the type of people who comprised the 46 percent of the electorate that voted for Donald Trump to be president are amongst those who were most offended by Sunday and can’t wait until July 4 so they can present their own bombastic view of what they think we, the people, are truly all about.

Is "believing" about fireworks explosions?

NOW I KNOW there are people who claim the Pride Parade is something that everybody ought to experience firsthand – if only for the kitsch that can provide many a laugh for the public.

It certainly isn’t any worse than the garishness of red, white and blue that we’ll be subjected to in nine more days – all in the name of “patriotism” and “America.” Although will be espousing that old hard-hat line of logic – “Love it, or leave it!”

Or, “Shut up, and Do what you’re told!”

Does that make Independence Day the anti-Pride parade for some types of people in our society – the ones who wish we were still back in the 19^th Century? Which is ironic, since many of these people are the same ones who criticize certain elements of the Islamic religious faith for refusing to accept the realities of modern-day life.

ARE THEY JUST jealous that our society isn’t still behind the times?

For those who are now ranting and raging about what I’m full of for bad-mouthing Independence Day, keep in mind it’s the garishness that I find mind-numbing.

I have always thought the upcoming Independence Day ought to be the most solemn of occasions -- one in which we respect the ideals of our national existence. Instead, we’re usually more interested in seeing who can light off the most obnoxious explosions into the sky – to the point where I know my father’s dog, Rocco, will wind up barking up a storm come the night of July 4 as he’ll be freaked out by all the, “bombs bursting in (the) air.”

So I’m not into the parade scene, which seems to me to be a whole lot of loitering by the masses. Except nobody felt compelled to call the cops to complain – unless the fireworks being set off by neighborhood kids get real obnoxious next week!

  -30-

Time passes, but ideologues use same nonsense to try to justify themselves

It is a line of logic I have heard so often from so many different conservative ideologue pundits that I don’t know who deserves credit (or blame, if you prefer).

A colossal mistake?

It is the theory that the whole Civil Rights movement and the passage in 1964 of the Civil Rights Act was a mistake because it antagonized the “right” into being so opposed to the idea of equality for all regardless of race.

I HAVE HEARD it said that the Second World War was a major change on our society that forced people of different races together. It would have caused a gradual change that eventually would have brought about some form of integration.

Letting black people agitate and political people use the rule of law to thwart those people who insist the “American Way” of life is a segregated one caused distrust and hate. Black people harmed their own interest, and brought upon themselves all the ill will some continue to feel upon them.

Which is a load of nonsense!!! This was a case where someone was going to have to force upon the ideologues the sense of equality that our nation theoretically is based upon.

So excuse me for thinking that Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and other ideologues are full of it when they suggest that gay activists screwed themselves over by pushing for gay marriage and having the high court implement it with their 5-4 ruling last week.

IT’S LITERALLY THE same line that society was gradually headed in their direction, and how people would have become accepting enough that we eventually would have had Legislatures in all 50 states enact something to wipe out their old laws that prevented marriage from being valid for gay couples.

Now relegated to the 'junk' drawer?

“Stealing this issue from the people will for many cast a cloud over same-sex marriage, making a dramatic social change that much more difficult to accept,” Roberts wrote in his legal dissent to the high court’s ruling.

While Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote of how the desire by gay couples to marry shows just how much they respect the institution that they want to be included, Roberts insisted for the record that equality is not a Constitutional issue.

There also was Justice Clarence Thomas, who argued that people cannot be demeaned by the actions in opposition to their desire for gay marriage. Then again, he also argued that the Negro slaves of old “did not lose their dignity because the government allowed them to be enslaved.”

Put sign next to Klan robe at Smithsonian

OF COURSE, IT means the government loses any dignity and respect it might want to claim for itself by permitting such things.

As for the people who want to complain that five justices imposed their will on the masses, that is nonsense. Because the whole point of the balance of powers between the branches of government is that it is the courts that resolve disputes and intervene when the legislative and executive branches act improperly.

Which is what one can say was the situation where some states, including our own Illinois, willingly implemented gay marriage, while others such as Indiana had to have it forced on them by lower courts and a few states where the Confederate battle flag prevails despite its repulsion by the masses were determined to be the holdouts – fighting the issue to the very death.

There are those people who were never going to be swayed on this issue – and were eager to use their powers of intimidation to ensure that political people of a cowardly nature would never take a firm stance on the issue, one way or another.

SO IT ONLY became natural that the Supreme Court would have to intervene. It can be argued that had the court taken the approach its minority suggests, it would have been neglecting its duty.

Will we get 'gay marriage' coin in 2065?

On Sunday, we got to see a wilder-than-usual celebration at the Gay Pride Parade in Chicago. The annual event’s timing just two days after the high court’s ruling made it an occasion for the act’s backers to let their joy out in public. I don’t doubt the parade images will offend certain people who will never get over what the court did.

Then again, isn’t the fact that this issue is now resolved legally so we can start the process of moving forward the ultimate benefit.

Or do you really think we’d be better off on racial issues if the civil rights movement of a half-century ago hadn’t happened and we still had pockets of the country using “state’s rights” rhetoric to justify segregation?

  -30-