Stonewall and the Meaning of Pride
In the wee hours of this night, 55 years ago today, police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York City’s Greenwich Village, for the umpteenth time, harassing, arresting, and brutalizing its patrons. As the night wore on, the patrons began to fight back gallantly in defense of their community and their personal autonomy. Spontaneous demonstrations and civil disobedience continued over the next few days, as crowds swelled into the thousands. While there had been other uprisings prior to Stonewall, this singular watershed event in LGBT+ history has been commemorated ever since by Pride parades that embrace the rainbow. Later today, the 2,100-square-foot Stonewall National Monument Visitor Center will open its doors to the public for the first time at 51 Christopher Street. Next door, at 53 Christopher Street, sits the current Stonewall Inn. (The original bar occupied both structures at 51–53 Christopher Street.) This Sunday, June 30, NYC kicks off the nation’s largest Pride March, which will pass the Stonewall National Monument in tribute.
But Pride is not about a day or a month or even a year. It’s about a lifelong journey.
Given my long scholarly engagement with Ayn Rand studies and in light of recent negative comments that I’ve seen circulating in social media by people in those circles whom I’ve known for a long time, I’d like to address the meaning and importance of Pride.
Back in 2003, my monograph, Ayn Rand, Homosexuality, and Human Liberation, was published. It examined Rand’s negative personal views toward homosexuality and their impact on the sexual attitudes of self-described “Objectivists” in the movement to which she gave birth and the gay subculture she would have disowned. To be clear, despite her personal views, Rand repudiated the right-wing war on criminalizing consensual sexual relationships. Nevertheless, her publicly voiced attitudes had a detrimental effect on many of her young gay fans who found comfort in a philosophy that celebrated human freedom, personal flourishing, and individual authenticity. Their painful testimonies are presented in a virtual “horror file” in my monograph.
But I also reported that, over time, there had been a notable shift toward tolerance and acceptance among those who were influenced by Rand. I also argued that Rand’s attitudes toward homosexuality (conventional for their time) were inconsistent with the core of her unconventional worldview and its challenge to “the cultural tradition of two-and-a-half thousand years.”
And yet, recently, as an extension of the highly charged political atmosphere in which we live, I have seen many people in Rand circles — and even in some libertarian circles — scoff at the very notion of LGBT+ Pride. “Pride over what?” has become the polemical pushback.
Given the source of these complaints, it might be useful to start with what Rand herself said about Pride. Rand did not consider pride to be the gravest of the so-called seven deadly sins. She wrote:
“The virtue of Pride can best be described by the term: ‘moral ambitiousness.’ It means that one must earn the right to hold oneself as one’s own highest value by achieving one’s own moral perfection — which one achieves by never accepting any code of irrational virtues impossible to practice and by never failing to practice the virtues one knows to be rational — by never accepting an unearned guilt and never earning any, or, if one has earned it, never leaving it uncorrected — by never resigning oneself passively to any flaws in one’s character — by never placing any concern, wish, fear or mood of the moment above the reality of one’s own self-esteem. And, above all, it means one’s rejection of the role of a sacrificial animal, the rejection of any doctrine that preaches self-immolation as a moral virtue or duty.”
Those who identify as LGBT+ understand the centrality of Pride to their very existence. In a culture that has had a history of religious dogmatists branding homosexuality as “immoral,” of a psychiatric establishment that once diagnosed homosexuality as a mental illness, of political institutions, often backed by violence, which engaged in the wholesale erasure of its LGBT+ citizens, it is miraculous that we have even reached a point where Pride is something that can and should be celebrated.
On one level, Pride is a community’s response to a culture that teaches self-loathing — which has led many of its members to higher incidences of mental health problems, substance abuse, and suicide. When one has heard declarations that the expression of one’s sexuality is itself immoral or sick, that one can be disowned by one’s family, deserted by one’s friends, damned to hell — or thrown off buildings in some regions of the world — just for coming out, or being found out, it is a remarkable achievement to see the emergence of Pride as an integral cultural and global phenomenon, one that seeks to triumph over a history of institutional oppression.
But on another level, Pride is first and foremost a personal achievement.
Facing off against crushing social pressures, it takes enormous courage to declare that one has the right to hold oneself as one’s highest value. It takes enormous courage to reject the “unearned guilt” of seeking to express the ‘the love that dare not speak its name.’ It takes enormous courage to reject the beliefs of those who declare that they ‘love the sinner, but hate the sin,’ when their moral code makes it impossible to practice the ‘sin’ of loving. It takes enormous courage not to sanction one’s sacrifice on the altar of those who view LGBT+ self-immolation as a virtue. It takes enormous courage to pursue one’s personal happiness and to nourish one’s self-esteem, to practice self-acceptance, self-affirmation, self-appreciation, and self-assertiveness — especially when one faces a culture that normalizes bullying people for being different.
It is this singular personal declaration of Pride that is at the core of this day and every day in the lives of those who refuse to disown their notions of self, sexuality, and love.
In the spirit of Pride, I offer today’s Song of the Day …
Song of the Day #2126: “Make Your Own Kind of Music,” words and music by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, appeared on the second studio album of Mama Cass Elliot. The album was released in June 1969 and this single was already spinning on the jukebox of the Stonewall Inn on the night of that infamous police raid. The soundtrack of the Stonewall jukebox is part of the new Stonewall National Monument Visitor Center [YouTube link]. This song calls out to those who have faced “the loneliest kind of lonely,” who have learned that “it may be rough goin’, just to do your thing’s the hardest thing to do.” It celebrates the right to “make your own kind of music, sing your own special song … even if nobody else sings along.” Check out the original Mama Cass rendition as well as the South Coast Chorale singing “The Songs of Stonewall” [YouTube links]. Long live the Stonewall rebels! And long live Pride!
This essay also appears on Notablog.
