How much progress have we really made? Maybe 20 years ago, gender or sexual orientation was as seemingly public as it always had been since the beginning of time.
Now, it's a pop culture phenomenon. At a surface level, a lot of positive movement has happened in two decades' time.
But while television and the spotlight might be a friendlier place for lesbian, gay, bi and transgender folks, it's by no means carried over from popular culture to actual culture. Homophobia is still rampant. The "Queer Eye" guys might give the Archie Bunkers of the world a makeover one day, but the next day, he's in the break room telling a crass joke about a gay co-worker. Homophobia is an issue as serious as racism, sexism and about every other "ism" under the sun, and it's not going away.
A serviceman was murdered by his bunkmates for only being suspected of being gay. Matthew Shepherd was beaten within an inch of his life and left for dead for being gay. If society is more comfortable with the LBGT community, the prejudiced are rolling back progress each time a hate crime or act of homophobia is carried out. And as long as there are people being persecuted only for who they sleep with or which gender they identify with, homophobia will always limit society's progress in truly accepting the LBGT community.
And as long as that attitude exists, Pride Week needs to exist. Its existence is hardly endangered, and it's never the case that Pride Week is a failure or a flop. In fact, it's fairly likely that most MSU students have at least an inkling of what Pride Week constitutes. Gay, straight or otherwise, it's a celebration of the LBGT community and a movement to personalize LBGT individuals beyond a social minority label.
Jon Hoadley, a social relations and women's studies junior, really put it best in Thursday's edition of The State News: "Having pride in ourselves is the first responsibility of these programs. But the second is to be more visible so other people can see that we're out there and realize these are the people you sit next to in class and that you live next to in the dorms."
When Pride Week begins today and continues throughout next week, though, we hope that Hoadley isn't selling the message short. Pride Week promotion suggests that even if one person changes his or her mind about apparent or hidden biases towards LBGT people, the week is a success. One mind is a start, all minds would be a success. The people most in need of experiencing what Hoadley is aiming for probably will go through next week not even realizing that Pride Week is happening all around them. Those are the minds that need Pride Week the most, and those are the minds that Pride Week is actually working for.
It seems like a drastic undertaking to only change one mind about generalized assumptions and attitudes toward the LBGT community, and we at The State News hope the bar is set higher than that. Every single person is capable of coming to an understanding, and Pride Week's message is just that - get into as many heads as possible, and expect a positive attitude change.
As long as homophobia exists, measures need to be taken to correct it - and Pride Week is seven days of fighting the good fight.
