R(evolution): Pride and Progress

We celebrate independence today. But we know that real American Independence is coming — Tomorrow.

My father died at the height of the AIDS crisis. It was like a war. In our very own (once?) beloved New York. Dead friends. Living skeletons for friends. A new purple sarcoma on your cheek in the morning mirror. They were all going to die. Gay extinction. Or so it seemed in 1988.

At the end — at his end, that is — my father the Reverend Tom Stribling still believed that homosexuality was a sin. To him it was a mostly-secret, often excruciating, sometimes delightful part of his existence. But mostly — a sin. My former Methodist Minister father believed that he died because of his own sins. And he died at the same time as sweet Peter and funny Jim and handsome Roberto. They were all dying — that’s the last they knew.

My father certainly would never have imagined that his death was one of many thousands in this country that flipped the switch and forever changed our American LGBTQ history. We were out now. We were marching. “Silence” we said, “Equals Death.”

I’m 54 now and grief of course fades. But at least once each Pride month I am moved to gasping tears at the sight of our Freedom. Not only the rainbow banners, and the happy queens, and the floats we tried to build that always broke down, and the flag dancers we…