Final update on Gay Pride Day decision (It's GOOD news!)

Backstory (which again, is already archived):

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x1653579

Update:

Council reverses, OKs Gay Pride Day

Two weeks after the Los Altos City Council rejected a proclamation to declare June 7 Gay Pride Day, instead declaring it the less-divisive Tolerance Day, a group of gay-rights activists persuaded council members to change their minds.

About 10 activists, students and political representatives decried the decision during Tuesday night's council meeting.

They didn't have to wait long for results. At the top of the meeting, Councilman King Lear made an unusual request to add an emergency item to the agenda. The council later voted 4-1 to declare June 7 Gay Pride Day as well.

Lear suggested that "we keep the Tolerance Day proclamation for those of us who are straight and add Pride Day for those who are gay, so that they can take pride.''

Members of the Los Altos High School Gay Straight Alliance had originally requested the Pride Day proclamation for their annual picnic. Alison Tarbell, president of the group, on Tuesday asked the council to designate one day to acknowledge pride in the gay community. "We are merely tolerated the other 364 days of the year,'' she said.

Only Councilman Ron Packard voted against the move. "It's too divisive of a role for the city to step into," he said.

Link:
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/8762093.htm

Monday, I did indeed attend the GSA meeting, and last night's city council meeting. Here's the Reader's Digest Condensed version:

I had decided beforehand NOT to speak to the city council. Well aware that my letter to the council had already made waves (I received responses from three council members, one dismissive, one noncommittal, and the third semi-supportive), I knew that mere recognition of my name could easily trigger a bad backlash, and the last thing I wanted to do was jeopardize the kids' last chance at this. So I kept my mouth shut, and tried to keep a poker face (not easy!) throughout the proceedings...

A number of private citizens spoke in favor of Gay Pride Day (plus one Log Cabin type who took the "Be happy with what you're getting" route -- I wanted to throw the pen I was holding at the back of his $300 haircut). But the highlight (or highlights) were the three LAHS students who, at 17-18 years old, spoke with more eloquence and feeling than all of the adults combined. I tell you, I was truly moved to tears. I couldn't have been more proud of these kids, whom I had met a day earlier, than if they had been my own.

Friends, if these kids are at all representative of our politically-active gay youth, we have nothing to worry about. I told them that after the meeting too.

The details of the meeting are probably only fascinating to me, so I will skip everything here, and just say that, when the vote was finally called -- four ayes and one nay -- the excitement from the audience was electric. It took all of about five seconds before the audience erupted in spontaneous applause... and we queers weren't the only ones clapping.

I know one little city-council decision like this is small potatoes, but it feels GREAT.

THANK YOU again, to each and every one of you who answered my original appeal for letters to the council. You did more good than you can even imagine. :)

You made some kids very happy -- and feel like the valuable human beings they are.


On edit: Mucho typos!

...and a :kick: for good measure!

As a former resident of Palo Alto, I never felt like homophobia like that would be tolerated in PA.

...and Stanford's then-named Gay People's Union (no, I wasn't a student) that I had so many opportunities to come out amongst likeminded baby queers who were going to change the world. Being in Los Altos now, I feel like Moses in the desert, gazing across to the Promised Land.

(Btw, I lived for a while at 520 Cowper Street -- which no longer exists as an old Victorian -- in a studio with a Murphy bed and a clawfoot bathtub... It was "Crash Central" to my friends. LOL)

what is the standard for declaring a day a day for something?

would White Power Day be acceptable as well?

One councilmember (who ultimately voted aye) said he had based his original nay vote on an earlier decision to deny a request for a Palestinian Cultural Appreciation Day (I think that's the correct name).

Now, AFAIC, they shouldn't have denied that either. Is there anything wrong with celebrating Palestinian culture? As long as that's what it's all about -- and not a statement of anti-Israel-ism, then where's the problem?

As for a "White Power Day," I suppose it would depend entirely on the arguments for and against -- as well as the "mission statement" of the group proposing it.

Bear in mind that King Lear, in his appeal to his fellow councilmembers, echoed one of my own arguments in favor of Gay Pride Day: Will it hurt anybody? More specifically, would it promote or endorse an idea based on the oppression of any other group?

Gay Pride does not. Neither would a day celebrating Palestinian culture (on the condition that it were limited to that, and not an anti-Israel statement).

And that, if I were a councilmember, would be the final basis on which I would vote, be it for Gay Pride, Palestinian Pride, or White Power: Does it hurt or attempt to oppress anyone or any other group?

As a private citizen, would I go to as much trouble to oppose a White Power day as I did to support a Gay Pride Day? Yes, if I believed such a proclamation would "hurt" anyone. And if we're talking about "white power" in the realm of neo-Nazi/Aryan nation ideology, I would fight it tooth and nail.

On the other hand, I would not stand in the way of a Klan parade through the center of town. That's simple free speech -- even if I detest the message.