Pride

I worked a booth at Gay Pride yesterday. Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota has had a booth at Pride for years now, and I’m proud to volunteer. I’m proud that Saint Mary’s, a Catholic Lasallian University has a presence at Gay Pride. People are mostly happily surprised, some are skeptical, asking questions like, “Is Saint Mary’s accepting of me? Really?” Most of us know that Catholics, like a lot of other Bible believing folk, think that being Gay is wrong, a sin and at the very least something to be ashamed of, not proud of. But we are there, in our booth, standing up for tolerance at the very least.

I don’t want to be supportive in the least, I want to be supportive in the most. I want to stand up and out for people to love who they choose. I want to be OutFront, and I want to be for marriage for all. I want to be allowing and accepting in my life. As one t-shirt said, “I ‘heart’ consensual sex.” I heart people, and most people have sex. Some don’t, and that’s OK too. I mostly don’t want to be about equating sexuality with spirituality, something the Catholic church and lots of others do quite glibly. I just think that’s silly, and seriously, where has it gotten them?

So Pride is in the midst of it all, accepting of the folk quietly handing out free Bibles and welcoming of the young and old alike. Pride about being who we are, people unable to really be the pure beings that I was brought up to believe were the epitome of Godhood. Where being ‘called’ to be a nun or priest, who swears off sex was the highest calling.

What’s my take away? That tolerant for all means tolerant for those too afraid to live without the rules as well as those somewhat afraid, and those who are unafraid. Some pick some of the rules, some break some of their own rules. Bound by rules, boundless in the variety of living around, among and within the rules. Maybe there is no escaping the rules, maybe there are no rules, and maybe, just maybe we are all spiritual beings, by way of being born, of non virgin birth.