It can be easy to think that Pride parades are unnecessary or somehow retroactive; that acceptance of homosexuality has become so widespread — and gay people so mainstream and vanilla — that the subject is hardly even interesting anymore.
Well, the organizers of Toronto pride have devised a simple (and effective) way to show why Pride is still needed in our society: by sharing their own hate mail.
A video produced in collaboration with The Toronto Star has been released to promote the event, and it gathers up organizers and volunteers to read aloud the various nasty letters they’ve received from homophobes.
Here are a few:
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To my unborn child, if you turn out gay I will burn you alive.”
“Homosexuality is a disease of the heart and mind.”
“Just be straight like the rest of us.”
“Stupid tranny looking c*nt. Kill yourself whore.”
“Take your AIDS infected lifestyle and get lost.”
“First, being gay is cool. Now being transgender is the new thing. What is this world coming to?”
Rachel Lauren Clark, a Toronto Pride board member, says, “When you’re a person who hears this stuff everyday, you become numb to it.”
Actually, my parents love me very much, I have a really great job, I volunteer with my community and I have a really great life.”
“It’s pathetic, they don’t know me at all and they just spew these things forward.”
“It’s a little surreal,” says Michele Cherny, who’s on Pride’s board of directors. “It almost seemed fake to hear the words out loud. The hate is out there.”
Watch: