August 2005 Archives

We've been to Amsterdam four times, but always at the Christmas holidays, so this would be our first time going in the summer. Earlier this year we decided that we wanted to do something really unique for vacation, so what better than Gay pride in the most tolerant city on the planet? I use the word tolerant, because that seems to truly describe the Dutch people. In all of our travels, we have yet to find a culture more nourishing or tolerant of all the worlds' peoples. That tolerance permeates their county and is reflected in her citizens and the visitors that are attracted to her shores. It makes for an enriching experience and provides a wonderful environment for whatever adventure you care to take.

Our trip there started out rather mundane, until four hours into the flight, when it became pill time and I discovered I had left my loaded two-week pill case at home. Talk about a moment of sheer horror. Fortunately, being as anal retentive as I am, I had also packed all the bottles, with more than enough drugs to cover the trip. All I was missing was my diuretic and I could survive without it, until our return. Of course, that just got our minds spinning as to what else we had forgotten, but we had our drugs, so all the other was just stuff.

The weather was beautiful as the temperatures were in the high 60s to low 70s in the day, dipping into the high 50s at night. Now we come from South Florida, where right now the daily temperature is 93 degrees with 100% humidity. Yes, that is right, 100% humidity. You can drink the air in Florida in the summer. So these temperatures were ideal in that we could wear real clothes, because we are the ultimate clotheshorses and now we could venture outside without being drenched in soaking sweat in fewer than 3 minutes. We relished the opportunity to shop and wear all those acquisitions as well as enjoying our bounty of clothes we packed for the trip.

Amsterdam is a city that must be walked through, so you might enjoy all that she offers. Her architecture is stunning, majestic and at times, extremely peculiar. They have buildings that appear to defy gravity, in that their leaning would suggest that they might collapse at any moment, yet they are centuries old. Having reclaimed so much of the city from the North Sea, they have woven a tapestry intertwining canals and squares and alleyways, some of which are measured by mere feet in width. It is a city that beckons you with her surface beauty, but really entices you through exploring her uniqueness. There is something here for everyone and half of the fun of the city is truly in the journey to each destination.

Finally Saturday comes, the day of the great boat parade and the first full day of Gay Pride. We were certainly prepared to have fun and be noticed, because we had purchased a set of orange camouflage kilts to wear in honor of Gay Pride and orange also happens to be the color of the Dutch royal family. We expected to see more kilts, but there were few and we certainly stood out in ours and enjoyed every moment of it, sometimes maybe a little too much.

The boat parade follows one of the canals through the city and is slated to run from 1-5 pm. In what might be a first for a predominately gay event, it actually started on time with the first boat being a fireboat that carried some of the hottest fireman we have ever seen. The boat also contained a powered water nozzle and let me say, I have never seen a water nozzle go through the gyrations that this one did, much to the amusement of the crowd. I imagine its' resemblance to a giant penis didn't hurt in the presentation either. On the front of the boat, was a fireman with a working water cannon, who then proceeded to soak an unwary spectator on the shore, right in front of us and we knew that this was going to be a very unique parade

Through the hours the parade continued, with every imaginable type of float you could imagine and many you might never envision (pictures to follow if possible). There were the usual floats representing every facet of the gay community, but also those from the normal support services you might expect. Everything from financial planners and banks, to services were represented, just like in a regular parade. It was also very nice to see a large percentage of both the crowd and parade were lesbians, as lesbians and gay men rarely congregate together in US events. After a while, the parade became somewhat of a backdrop to what was occurring near where we were standing.

It was interesting to watch the crowd and see how a society can choose to interact. Smaller people and children were allowed up front, near the canal, so they could see and people freely gave up their chairs to seat the elderly. When it rained, umbrellas covered us all, even those without them. People came and went and the crowd adjusted accordingly. Everyone was laughing and enjoying a very unique day and there was just as much to see on the streets as in the canal parade. By days end, it would be apparent that this was not so much a Gay pride event, but more like just another event hosted by the city. It made for a very nice feeling to just be considered "normal".

Around 4:30 the parade was winding down and so we started to walk toward the point where the parade started. As we approach the beginning of the parade, the last float was leaving and the crowd had thinned considerable on the shores. Granted there were still hundreds of people here, but nothing like the crowds further down the parade route. So we stopped to take a rest and here comes a boat load of men who proceed to make waving motions, to us, with their arms, obviously indicating their desire to see what indeed one wears under a kilt. In our case it involved nothing more than a cockring, much to their amusement, when we lifted our kilts and flashed our bareness for all to see. Not content at our unexpected exhibitionism, we then proceeded to repeat said actions after a second prompting. We have never laughed so hard as utter disbelief to what we had just done.

After regaining our composure we left the parade route and went to an area where they had set up an outside dance hall. It was about 4 blocks long and they were playing everything from Hip Hop to Disco. And spread out along these four blocks, was more male eye candy that we had ever seen in our lives. Every type, nationality and fantasy seemed to walk by, in some form, over the next several hours. What more could you want than to quaff some Dutch beer, while enjoying some of natures most glorious creations? Life was very good indeed.

After leaving the outside dance area, we decided to return to our hotel to regroup and plan our evening. As we are walking home, we decide to stop in one of the many fine pastry shops for a baguette with ham and cheese. No sooner had we placed our order than a young man wearing nothing but a raincoat, socks and shoes, surrounded by a group of men, approached us. Now Amsterdam is a very open city, but he looked just like a flasher and even with the circus of Gay pride, he still stood out from the crowd.

He approaches us and explains that he is getting married and part of that process involves this ritual, where he is given trinkets and then attempts to sell them to strangers, hoping to raise as much money as possible. So here we are, two guys in orange kilts, talking with a flasher, who's offering to sell us some Hugo Boss shower gel for five euros. But instead of buying that, we asked him what was with the coat and at that point he whipped open his coat and we just lost it.

Here was a guy wearing a sheer red negligee and under it was nothing but a g-string cock covering that was a mouse, complete with whiskers, nose, eyes, ears and a long tail. Inside the coat, he had more items attached, for sale, like a hawker you might see in Times Square. Otherwise his only other attire was his socks and shoes. So we inquired about what else he had to sell and finally settled on the shower gel and we give him the five euros. While accepting our money, he thanks us for our kindness and then as he curtsy's a ton of loose change comes falling out of his coat. This brought down the house. Even passer Byers had stopped to watch this exchange and I haven't laughed so hard in years. They were really good natured guys obviously out to embarrass their charge in any way possible.

He then thanks us for our "donation", covers himself and upon leaving, each of his companions bade us a farewell. What a unique and enjoyable tradition and we were very surprised to be privy to it. It was so unexpected in a culture where the males are generally so reserved and sedate. I suppose it just reaffirms that love causing temporary insanity is universal. So with that done, we scooped up our baguettes and continued our walk home. This would remain a day that we wound not soon forget, just like they should be.

Suffice it to say that our trip was wonderful and as always we return energized, relaxed and once again deeply in love, because that seems to remain a constant, no matter where we travel. Once we strip away the daily stress and leave our reality at home behind, we once again get to share each other exclusively. Even our health and especially HIV are forced to the background for our trips and we are left with just us, an awfully nice way to spend a vacation.

I happen to live in Broward County, Florida, one of only five school districts in the US that has rejected the We Are Family video because Barney, Big Bird, Kermit and Sponge Bob are sending a subliminal pro-gay message. Now you might laugh at the seeming absurdity of this School Board, Diversity Committee decision and possibly write it off as an isolated and forgettable incident. But let me recount a little more closely, the outrageous anti-gay attacks behind this decision, then ask yourself what you would do if they were talking about your family, about your children.

A local right-wing radio host Steve Kane, who also sits on the Diversity Committee, says he doesn't want children with same-sex parents talking about their families at school, calling that the "foot in the door." So what he is saying, is that gay children or children of same-sex headed families shouldn't talk about their families and they should be filled with shame. He doesn't want these children to hear Barney sing "We Are Family" and decide to share about their family with the class. Even worse, he fears the teacher might tell these children that their family is valued and respected too.

Kane is even more direct in his attack on gay groups that provide critical resources, like anti-bullying programs and suicide hotlines, saying "I have dealt with them in the past, they are devious, devious people". the whole thing smells like fish that is dead for three days. And that is where the far right's true agenda reveals itself -- to remove every resource for gay students and to ignore the reality that gay students exist and that some children grow up in households headed by gay parents.

The bottom line is they believe some families, like a gay-parented family, don't deserve kindness or respect and they would rather throw out the very notion of diversity rather than extend that respect to families they deem unacceptable. That should worry all of us.

Unfortunately this trend is not unique to Broward County and is spreading like a plague across this country. In too many school districts, scenes like the above are being repeated, except this time they are gambling with the lives of gay children. Far-right Christian organizations and anti-gay critics are being successful in removing sex education curriculums that "normalize" gay men and lesbians by implying that homosexuality is a biological trait. They complain that the programs do not stress enough sexual abstinence until marriage and have even gone so far, in some locales, as to remove proven sex education materials, such as the proper use of a condom.

These misguided groups are successfully censoring gay-friendly sex-education lessons, across the country, and in too many instances they are receiving little resistance. Some replace pro-gay materials with antigay messages, while others encourage counselors to refer young gays to "ex-gay" programs, which teach that homosexuality can and should be changed. At the same time, the Bush administration is funneling hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars into abstinence-until-marriage sex-ed programs that ignore gay youth altogether.

The federal government is sponsoring messages in which the subtle bias is always there. They're teaching abstinence until marriage, and if you're a young person, who knows you're gay, you also know you're not allowed to get married. But it gets much worse.

Eleven of the 13 most popular abstinence-only programs blur religion and science, teach gender stereotypes, and contain scientific errors, according to a report by U.S. representative Henry Waxman of California. One curriculum falsely tells students that they can catch HIV through sweat and tears. Another wrongly says 50% of gay teens have HIV.

So what's the final outcome of this trend? The only plan gay youth are being given by many school systems, to prevent the transmission of sexually transmitted diseases is something that is not really available to them: marriage.

At times like this it is not just the comments of religious or anti-gay zealots but also the silence of everyone who supports diversity that matters. The silence sends a message that teachers should avoid discussing gay families, those gay families and students are unwelcome, and that homophobes can bully our school officials. The silence is allowing our federal government to condemn countless gay youth, to possible HIV or STD infections, because they are being allowed to lie and distort reality, just to please their right-wing constituency.

That silence casts doubt on a decision-making process in which the toxic bigotry that surrounds it is left unchallenged and that should definitely worry all of us.

ps. I'll be back in the forums on August 15, so don't think I'm ignoring any comments on the above, until then.