I often admire your stances on the editorial pages, but on Sunday, your less-than-even-tepid news coverage of last Saturday’s gay pride parade missed the point. The photo on Page B1 suggests that about six people marched, and the article focuses on the police protection.
The police did a good job, solidly present, helpful yet unobtrusive. But where were your eyes and ears? The parade was so vast that as the front was reaching its goal at Deering Oaks, marchers were still filing into the starting point on Congress Street!
Far beyond the 3,000-plus who police say attended, both sides of the streets were thronging; the crowd’s approval and rainbow banner-waving applause made them very much part of the manifestation.
Why is this news? Look back through world history: How often has a wide-flung society profoundly, generously revised itself on a issue of social morality – within a mere 20 or so years?
Many lonely, individual acts of great courage started that shift, but our laws and customs now affirm it. Hearts have opened. Portland’s parade was part of a tidal shift of collective attitude toward a minority, a real triumph for positive democracy, a source of pride for all.
Does the U.S. need to be “made great again”? Hey, open your eyes – it just proved yet again that sometimes it is great.
Richard Sewell
Portland
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