Pride helps overcome prejudice.

Pride serves many purposes, including overcoming the stigmatization and isolation which results from laws throughout our past and present which were intended to punish, dehumanize, and suppress gay people.  Many of those laws have been removed, yet others continue to be proposed, here and around the world. While many more individuals and religious organizations are speaking out for equal rights, and many steps forward have been taken, there have been many setbacks along the way, with majorities preemptively prohibiting progress using the popular vote, and most painful of all, taking away rights once they had been achieved. The common thread however was the way in which fundamentalist religious beliefs have been used to punish and harm people around the world and here at home as well. While religion holds such promise for teaching people to treat each other with the love and respect we wish for ourselves, it is all too often used to inflict pain and suffering in an attempt to control others. It has been that way since the beginning of civilization, but there has also always been the drive for love, acceptance, and equality. So Pride reminds there is still reason to hope, but much work left to be done.