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Parents'
Pride |
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"Every year it's a bombshell," says Jeff Hauptman, father (of one gay son and one straight daughter*), and social action chair of the Rockland County, NY, chapter of PFLAG (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays).
"For me, Gay Pride day is the most emotional day of the year." Neither he nor his wife, Lila, president of the same PFLAG chapter, have missed a Pride parade since their son, Michael, came out. Says Lila: "We've marched in the pouring rain, the broiling sun... It's our favorite holiday, the one we look forward to more than any other day of the year." That's because, Jeff says, "It's so wonderful to see so many gay and bi and trans people out there all together, marching, laughing and cheering...
The young kids get to me especially. "But it's bittersweet. We know most of these people aren't getting support from their families," he adds, tears cracking his voice. "Every year kids run up to us and say, 'We wish you were our parents.'" Adds Lila, "One year recently a kid said to me, 'Maybe this year my parents will let me come home.'" "I think the message of PFLAG is: Don't throw these kids away," Jeff says. "Our contingent gets the most applause from the crowd, people tell us. It's hard to tell when you're marching... "It's a day of fun and happiness and sadness," he concludes. "There's still so much work to be done." Julia Thoron, chair of PFLAG San Francisco, concurs: "Bring Kleenex. You see all those yearning faces as you march by--people whose parents can't or won't be there, parents who have lost children to AIDS. A woman I know just goes through the crowd hugging anyone who looks like he or she needs it." Thoron, who with her husband, Sam, organizes the PFLAG-SF contingent, sums it up: "It's a day of celebration, enrichment and energy.
I am so proud of my lesbian daughter." Like the Hauptmans and Thorons, Adele Starr of Pasadena, who was the very first national PFLAG president and whose involvement with the organization spans 22 years, feels she marches "not just for our own children but for all the children... We're surrogate parents to so many." At 78, married 56 years and the parent of five grown children (as well as grandmother to her gay son's adopted child), she's developed a philosophy that is global in its simplicity: "Love is what sustains us while we learn to understand." It's just this kind of thinking that has kept PFLAG going strong these past two-and-a-half decades--and which results in the massive applause its parade contingents receive everywhere they march, every year. But parents of gay and lesbian offspring don't have to belong to PFLAG to appreciate Pride day. Says Jeanne Plymouth of Ridgewood, NJ: "My son and his friends have such a terrific time every year. They get all dressed up in feathers. I never thought I'd see such a thing in this family. My husband groans, 'They're at it again.' But I think, well, they're having fun, they're not hurting anyone, so where's the harm?" Parental acceptance, Jeff Hauptman points out, comes in stages: "Everyone pretty much starts out at square one. Lila and I went through it ourselves--where did we go wrong, whose fault is it, and what if so-and-so finds out," he recalls.
"In our case, we just got to where we said, 'This is stupid.' Some people struggle longer than we did... In PFLAG our goal is to help parents at least get to the point where they can say, 'OK, if you're gay, you're gay.'" But many come a great deal further than that--so far, in fact, that their own progress becomes a source of pride. "I chose to deal with my son's homosexuality because it had to be dealt with," proclaims Rita Fischer of Brooklyn, NY, proud mother of Jay. "I had to learn. My husband and I went through all the emotions and I'm glad we did, because in the end we didn't lose a son--in fact, we gained one." She's referring to Jay's 16-year partnership with Michael. In 1993, Rita and her late husband, Alex, coordinated their 50th wedding anniversary with the commitment ceremony of Jay and Michael. Both took place in Manhattan on the same day, at a gay synagogue. Fischer, who is 74 and reigns as the nation's greatest AIDSWALK fund-raiser (she raised more than $23,500 this year and, as always, completed New York City's six-and-a-half-mile course), can't fully articulate why gay activism has become so important to her. "I live and breathe it. Evidently it's fulfilling to me; I can't explain it. I'm not a shrink," she says in her perfect Brooklyn accent. "I just know I have to do it." And June, she says, is her favorite month of all: "This is a wonderful, wonderful time of the year. There's so much going on--not just the parade itself but all the activities that go along with it. [New York City] gets so exciting right now--you just want to be here. I'm very, very thankful to be involved." "Pride day means a lot to me because it wasn't easy," says Peggy Olson of San Marino. "My husband never had a problem with our son's orientation, but I did... I've come a long way over the years. The first time we marched, other people had to talk us into it. Now we love the parade." "We're pleased when they show us old fogies on TV," adds her husband, Marty, with a wide grin. "We get a kick out of all the outrageous people who march, but it's good for viewers to see [us], too." And Larry Sperber, who begins his term as
president of the Los Angeles PFLAG chapter this
month, says simply: "Pride day is the day we stand
with our gay and lesbian friends out there in
front, in public, where everyone can see us." |
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