Weekend Beach Bum:  

You can get it on Saturday, September 27, at the seventh annual Delaware Pride Festival. This year’s extravaganza will be held at Gordon’s Pond, Cape Henlopen State Park, in Rehoboth Beach. Pride events are scheduled from noon until six o’clock. The Delaware Pride Web site promises "to once again bring together many facets of the GLBT community for a day of celebration." The theme for this year’s festival is "Unity Through Pride," stressing the great diversity within the Delaware GLBT community and the need to work together to achieve common goals.

Again this year, the festival will feature numerous vendors, including food and drink, political action and volunteer groups, and health information, not to mention a great day of entertainment. This year’s headliner is CeCe Peniston, who rocketed to stardom with dance hits like "Finally" and "Keep on Walkin’." According to her official Web site, Miss Peniston has performed for Bill Clinton, the Pope, Aretha Franklin, and Patti LaBelle, so you’re sure to be in good company as an audience member. Entertainers also include acclaimed New York City comedians Jessica Kirson and Danny Cohen, and various local musicians. Drag addicts will be sure to get their fix, with such noted local favorites as outgoing Miss Delaware Gay Pride Erica Lucci, newly crowned Miss Delaware Gay Pride Ivy Profen, Miss Gay Northern Delaware Anita Mann, Miss 814 Christina DeCarlo, Poke, and others. This year’s festival promises to be the most family-friendly yet, with gay families forming every day now.

For those of you unfamiliar with the wonderful work of Delaware Pride, its dedicated board members and volunteers do much more than put on an annual festival (which, in and of itself, is quite a lot of work). The organization also sponsors numerous events throughout the year, including Bingo-A-Go-Go, Pride Pins Bowling, Pride Roller Skating, and various charitable events. Delaware Pride meets at least once monthly to plan the pride festival and fun community gatherings. For more information about Delaware Pride, visit the organization’s Web site at www.delawarepride.org.

Delaware Pride does an incredible job with the annual festival and its many events, but I do have a bone to pick with one section of the Delaware GLBT community—the people who complain after each year’s festival because they would like to have seen more of this, less of that, a little of this, or none of that. Being a regular performer at the festival, I’m sure that I hear a lot more of this negative talk than the average Josephine, but I think we all hear our share. This kind of gossipy chatter does nothing but drive a wedge into our community, the very antithesis of Delaware Pride’s mission. Personally, this year, I intend to confront each person who confides in me with negative comments about how the festival "could have, would have, should have." If you didn’t help plan it, don’t criticize it. Like my mother always says, "If you don’t vote, you can’t criticize the politician."

If I had a ten-dollar bill for every organization I’ve been involved with in my life, I probably could buy Anita a fabulous original design CoCo Vega gown. I’m more than familiar with the human condition that most people prefer to sit on the sidelines and criticize, rather than jump headfirst into a situation and become a contributor. Still, it’s a less than appealing side of the human being, and I, for one, have no patience for those who’d rather run their mouths than roll up their shirt sleeves.

With my insane work, performance, and writing schedule, I simply do not have time to do much work for Delaware Pride, aside from performing at each year’s festival, running at most bingo games, and attending fundraising events. But I know many members of Delaware Pride personally, and I can attest to their great dedication to all the objectives of the organization and to the GLBT community of Delaware. They’re always looking for more hands and ideas, so attend a monthly meeting or contact Delaware Pride to find out how you can help shape next year’s festival and events. If Delaware Pride isn’t your thing, there must be about a thousand ways to work for the betterment of the GLBT community, no matter what your skills, how much time you have to give, or where you live.

With that said, please allow me to descend from my rainbow-colored soapbox and tell you a little bit about what "pride" means to me. Most heterosexuals don’t know what "pride" means, aside from the dictionary definition, and, for the older country-western music fans, maybe Charlie Pride. Many heterosexuals have the attitude my mother once took: "There’s no straight pride. Why do you have to have gay pride?" She quickly changed her tune when I reminded her of a conversation we had when I was very young.

"Mom," I asked her one day, "they have Mother’s Day, and Father’s Day. Why isn’t there a Kids’ Day?"

"Because," she replied sagely, "it’s Kids’ Day all year long."

It’s Straight Day all year long, too. We see images of ourselves very infrequently in our society, and when we do, it’s too often in a negative, comedic, or mocking light. We are denied the social institution of marriage and the proper regard for our families. We are still fired from our jobs; kicked out of our homes; arrested and imprisoned; verbally, psychologically, and physically attacked. A pride event gives us a few hours to celebrate our victories, our selves, our relationships, our friends and families, our values, our diversity, our community, our pride.