On Saturday, the now traditional “Pink Parade” was held in Nice, the azure version of the national and international Gay Pride events. This year’s Nice edition celebrated its 10th anniversary. This event, organized by the AGLAE association in cooperation with the LGBT Côte d’Azur Center, gathered several thousand participants.
Regularly present at this Nice event, I did not want to miss this 2013 edition, which was set in a particular context in more ways than one.
Let us first recall, if needed, that last April 23, after a legislative marathon, demonstrations, and all sorts of excesses, the National Assembly definitively adopted the text opening marriage and adoption to same-sex couples by 331 votes to 225 after 136 hours and 56 minutes of debate!
It would be caricatural to present this advancement as yet another ideological clash of the left against the right.
It is regrettable, however, that the Nice Pink Parade did not gather more diversity in terms of local political representation…
Note the presence in the parade of a delegation from “GayLib,” a movement that works in favor of equality with a republican and humanistic spirit, formerly very close to the UMP and now searching for political affiliation…
But this year 2013 will also be marked by an alarming increase in HIV infection numbers. This dramatic reality, of course, has not escaped the organizers of the Pink Parade, who once again hammered out prevention messages.
Some feel that the perhaps excessive and caricatural nature of a few Gay Pride participants can harm the cause that the majority of participants wish to defend. Nice is no exception to this rule.
However, let’s acknowledge that this “folk” aspect brings an extremely festive touch to events that have drawn the attention of the media, public authorities, and the general population to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender issues (commonly referred to as LGBT).
Tomorrow, other social debates will open. They are complex and will certainly stir passions again but unfortunately also a train of hate. Accepting the differences of others is evidently not easy for everyone. Playing on the fear of what is unknown or poorly known is easy and opens the door to rearguard battles as well as extremisms of all kinds… not devoid of electoral ulterior motives.
The journey will still be long, and undoubtedly fraught with obstacles, to reach the end of the beautiful and broad slogan of the day: “Go to the end of Equality”!
Hervé CAEL
