Celebrating Pride Week

The LGBT community certainly knows how to throw a commemorative event. Don't believe us? Go join one of the hundreds of Pride celebrations happening around the country this weekend (and in the month of June — gay and lesbian history month* — in general). Forty-one years ago this weekend, a group of patrons at the Stonewall Inn, a bar in New York that was known to attract gay clientele, decided they'd had enough of the police raids and harassment they were subjected to on a regular basis for their sexuality. So they fought back against he cops when they showed up to arrest people for "suspicion of homosexuality" that night. In the process, this group (along with other similarly rebellious types around the country who'd grown tired of the closet's stifling walls) lit the flames of the gay and lesbian rights movement. More than four decades later, there's still a lot of fighting to do: despite some advances, inequities, intolerance, and discrimination abound in arenas ranging from marriage to the military, immigration to prom. There's also quite a lot to celebrate, however, not the least of which is the courageous efforts put forth by the foremothers and -fathers of the movement. Pride celebrations combine all those interests: they are political movements masquerading (or perhaps more accurately, in drag) as big, fat, fabulous parties — or to put it another way, the partying is political, honey.

Music is a necessary requirement for any good party, and it's integral to Pride. Classic "family" anthems and contemporary pop songs blast out of every boys-in-Speedos-bedecked float in the parade (you're guaranteed to hear a lot of Lady Gaga). Festivals feature beloved divas past and present* as performers and parade marshals. And, of course, you can't toss a string of rainbow Mardi Gras beads without hitting a club pumping out hot dance beats in any self-respecting "gayborhood" this weekend. This is the weekend when this community, so historically ostracized by mainstream society, takes the bitch over — and that includes pop music.

Whether you feel like politicking or partying, thinking or dancing (or, ideally, all of the above), we've got what you need to get in the mood to get your Pride on. And honey, it is fabulous.