Gay Pride

BALTIMORE REALLY knows how to make you feel good about being gay. And you could feel the pride all around. During the city's gay-pride weekend festivities June 16-17, Fragrance, the cross-dressing host of the block party on Greene and Lexington streets, stepped on stage - in such neon makeup and bright plumes, he almost appeared radioactive - and screamed, "Hey Baltimore ... we've got to love each other!" To him, it didn't matter if you were gay, straight, black, white, old, young; if you were having a good time, you were welcome to the party.

ROME - Nearly halfway into the Roman Catholic Church's millennial Holy Year, the nightmares of its organizers - unwieldy crowds, gridlock, terrorism, the sudden collapse of an overworked pope - have yet to come true. But when a group of prelates sat down in the Vatican last month to watch a three-hour video, they perceived a terrible new menace to the yearlong event: an international gay pride festival scheduled to be held here July 1-9. The film, sent by Monsignor William Levada, archbishop of San Francisco, contains news and documentary footage of a 1998 gay parade in his city.

Cartoon of Watts is 'liberal racism' that ignores his successesOn Nov. 23, The Sun ran a cartoon on the Opinion Commentary page by Dan Wasserman depicting congressman J. C. Watts' election to the House Republican leadership as a form of affirmative action.This characterization was an insult to every person of color who has achieved a position of prominence through his or her own efforts.The characterization amounts to nothing less than liberal racism. This form of racism, which is widely accepted by the liberal establishment, holds that African Americans and other people of color are incapable of competing with white Americans unless they are afforded some type of special treatment.

MILLINGTON -- Who said everyone loves a parade?Residents of this historic Kent County town are learning how wrong that old saying is, as they grapple with a dispute about whether to allow a gay pride march in their midst.They also are chewing over the meaning of another chestnut, something about "the right of the people peaceably to assemble."An openly gay 21-year-old resident has sparked another skirmish in the nation's culture wars by declaring that he wants to hold a parade celebrating homosexuality through these picturesque streets at the headwaters of the Chester River.

Thousands of gay men and lesbians took their Pride Festival to Towson State University yesterday, marking a change in venue for the annual event from its traditional city location in Wyman Park.The festival was one of the last activities in the Pride 95 weekend, sponsored by the Gay and Lesbian Community Center of Baltimore. It followed Saturday's downtown parade and block party and a walk to raise money for AIDS treatment yesterday morning.Organizers expected the Towson festival to draw 10,000 people, and at one point in the afternoon they estimated that as many as 7,000 were there.

The gay rights movement is little more than a collection of tactics in search of a goal. Since its beginning, this has been the case.This ''movement'' started 25 years ago when patrons of the Stonewall Inn -- a New York City bar catering to a gay clientele -- spontaneously rioted for two days. The rioters were fed up with their gathering places being randomly raided and with being roughed up by police, taken to the police station and otherwise being treated as second-class citizens merely because of their sexual orientation.

It seemed like a typical summertime festival in Baltimore: the aroma of grilled burgers filled the air while people sat on blankets in the shade and danced to music in the sun.Only this was a little bit different.Here was an event in which gays and lesbians said they could be themselves without fear of harassment or rejection.Several thousand men and women gathered in the grassy Wyman Park yesterday to affirm their sexuality and commemorate their struggle for civil rights at the annual Gay and Lesbian Pride Day festival.

It seemed like a typical summertime festival in Baltimore: the aroma of grilled burgers filled the air while people sat on blankets in the shade and danced to music in the sun.Only this was a little bit different.Here was an event in which gays and lesbians said they could be themselves without fear of harassment or rejection.Several thousand men and women gathered in the grassy Wyman Park yesterday to affirm their sexuality and commemorate their struggle for civil rights at the annual Gay and Lesbian Pride Day festival.

With a faltering voice, Jennifer Roberts told how her 13-year-old son's classmates ridiculed and harassed him -- because of her."The kids threw him against lockers and made fun of him. They said his mother was 'lezzie, lezzie, lezzie,' " she said.Worse, the Baltimore mother of two continued, a lawyer she consulted about the harassment advised her to acquiesce. Because her four-year domestic partnership with another woman not recognized legally, the attorney feared that her suitability as a parent would be challenged in court.