We sat by the pool outside our Disney World resort hotel. We both had gone to Orlando for a journalism conference and arrived unknowingly on the biggest of the Gay Days at Disney.
Disney World, for those who have never ventured, casts a sweet elixir spell and Gay Days, for those who have never attended, is a fabulous foray into this fantasyland.
My mind was trying to figure a way to cut a gloom-and-doom, journalism-is-dying conference class to hang with some of the red-shirted Gay Day Disneyphiles in the Magic Kingdom, to get close to Dame Edna even briefly and to gain admission to a party with Patty Sheehan. I had the wrong Patty Sheehan — I was thinking golfer, not Orlando city commissioner (no offense, commissioner).
But my colleague’s mind was trying to figure out more ways to cut down the gay men lounging by the pool. He reminded me of Archie Bunker, a grumbling Bunker in Speedo shorts and Under Armour shades lying in a cabana. “Did you see them? ‘Oh hey, girlfriend’?” he snickered.
“That’s just mean and uncalled for,” I replied.
Because June and the countdown to the Stonewall anniversary puts me in a certain frame of mind, I added, “Where’s your pride spirit?”
You probably think this Bunker-type was in Orlando for the anti-gay conference held, not coincidentally, at the same time as Gay Days. But no. My fellow journalist is a member of our big not-always-happy GLBT family. He dissed the G people, the L people, the B people and most venomously the T people in the community.
I challenged him on each offense and he seemed only to get more joy from the feuding.
I realize now my question to him shouldn’t have been where is your pride spirit, but where is your pride? In hindsight, the verbal violence he displayed toward his brothers and sisters revealed not that he lacked pride in them, but that he lacked pride in his self.
A couple of hours after I left gay Bunker by the pool, I was back home, watching Hillary Clinton announce the suspension of her campaign and endorsement of Barack Obama. Several times she pledged to continue to work for gay rights. Later that day, Obama released his statement for Pride: “I am proud to join with our lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered brothers and sisters in celebrating the accomplishments, the lives and the families of all LGBT people during this Pride season. …It’s time to live up to our founding promise of equality by treating all our citizens with dignity and respect.”
I thought about gay Bunker and his cruel words and about the struggle for “the founding promise of equality.” How difficult it will be to achieve if GLBT brothers and sisters cannot treat one another with dignity and respect and also take pride in their selves.
What I know of gay Bunker is that he’s of the age to have been loathed by his family, his friends, his classmates, his political party, his co-workers, his doctors, his therapists, his neighbors, his legislators, his church and yes, complete strangers, because he’s gay. He’s of the age to have been classified as suffering a disorder, as being sick. He’s of the age to have been classified as a criminal for engaging in sex with his lover.
What I also know of gay Bunker is that today he is an out gay man with a sweetheart of a long-term partner, a good job, secure future and the professional respect of his peers — and of that, he should be proud. He owes himself some personal respect. He owes himself some time to celebrate this Pride month. And he owes himself some Magic Kingdom happiness. “Though the mountains divide/And the oceans are wide/It’s a small small world.”

 Happy pride, buff Bunker.