14 Quotes for Pride Month

This past weekend, my city held its fourth annual Pride celebration. Though we might have been about a half-century behind some other cities in establishing an annual festival, we are trying to make up for lost time — and it’s always joyous to see how many people show up and have a lovely time being their authentic selves. Livonia Equity & Anti-Racism Network had a table at this year’s event (as we have at all of them), and we provided chalkboards and chalk markers for people to represent what Pride means to them. A few of the creations are shown above. If you want to check out additional pics from the day, you can find those here.

In honor of Pride Month, here are 14 quotes that recognize and celebrate the LGBTQ+ community.

Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law, for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal, as well.

— Barack Obama

So everybody who talks about homosexuals as a damnation better look in a mirror and try to heal their own selves. Who they call homosexuals do, at least, act out of their love. That’s better than the hate a whole lot of people act out of.

— J. California Cooper, Some Soul to Keep

Years ago, homosexuals were given special status within the tribe. They had powerful medicine. I think it’s even more true today, even though our tribe has assimilated into homophobia. I mean, a person has to have magic to assert their identity without regard to all the bullshit, right?

— Sherman Alexie, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven

“…And you have to remember that Edward grew up at a time when … when homosexuality was illegal. Quite apart from being socially unacceptable — at least in the circles we moved in.”

“That’s ridiculous. You can’t help it if you’re gay.”

“Reasonable people have always thought that.”

— Penelope Lively, Passing On

With regard to Senator Strom Thurmond’s attack on my morality, I have no comment. By religious training and fundamental philosophy, I am disinclined to to put myself in the position of having to defend my own moral character. Questions in this area should properly be directed to those who have entrusted me with my present responsibilities.

— Bayard Rustin, Down the Line: The Collected Writings of Bayard Rustin

I think of myself as a descendant of traditions that would not have wanted me. Right? So, as long as I’m a queer writer, I’m Whitman’s descendant. And he can’t do nothing about it.

— Jericho Brown

Conservatives believe in the ties that bind us. Society is stronger when we make vows to each other and we support each other. I don’t support gay marriage in spite of being a conservative. I support gay marriage because I am a conservative.

— David Cameron

Tell me what you need to tell me but keep far away from my son who still loves a beautiful thing not for what it means — this way or that — but for the way facets set off prisms and prisms spin up everywhere and from his own jeweled body he’s cast rainbows — made every shining true color.

Now try to tell me — man or woman — your heart was ever once that brave.

— Victoria Redel

‘Love him,’ said Jacques, with vehemence, ‘love him and let him love you. Do you think anything else under heaven really matters? And how long, at the best, can it last, since you are both men and still have everywhere to go? Only five minutes, I assure you, only five minutes, and most of that, helas! in the dark. And if you think of them as dirty, then they will be dirty — they will be dirty because you will be giving nothing, you will be despising your flesh and his. But you can make your time together anything but dirty, you can give each other something which will make both of you better — forever — if you will not be ashamed, if you will only not play it safe.’

— James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room

I’m Daisy, and which of those many names she told us are you?

Which would you like me to be? I said.

Nice of you to offer me a choice, she said, and are you a boy or a girl?

Yes I am, I said.

Okay, she said, well, that’s either very brave of you or very stupid, given recent developments of history, so which is it?

— Ali Smith, Gliff

“How did you know the ways of woman and man?” I asked.

He laughed.

“Watching the new men and women in the bush. Luala Luala, the people above the Gangatom, have man who live with man like a wife, and woman who live with woman like a husband, and man and woman with no man or woman, who live as they choose, and in all these things there is no strangeness,” he said.

— Marlon James, Black Leopard, Red Wolf

At real stripper bars women just dance — so many things they could be checking off their lists. I guess men don’t want to see women work? They get that at home? In my Champagne Room the butches plant bulbs, build bookshelves, clean basements, write checks to the ACLU, retrain your dog.

— Jill McDonough, Here All Night

We cannot keep turning our backs on gay and lesbian Americans. I have fought too hard and too long against discrimination based on race and color not to stand up against discrimination based on sexual orientation.

— John Lewis

Reporters & fathers call your generation “the worst.”

Which really means “queer kids who could go online & learn that queer doesn’t have to mean disaster.”

Or dead.

Instead, queer means, splendiferously, you.

— Chen Chen