Victoria Noe

Award-winning Author, Speaker, Activist

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Gays Against Guns

Pride and Pulse: One Year Later

Pride and Pulse: One Year Later
Jun 08, 2017 by Victoria Noe
Monday is the first anniversary of the massacre at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, where 49 people were murdered and 58 others were injured.

The shooting happened during Pride Month, when members of the LGBT community, long driven underground, celebrate their freedom to love.

Pride is rooted in the Stonewall riots, not celebrations. During the plague years of the AIDS epidemic, Pride parades were one of the few opportunities to get the media to focus on the desperation of those times (though the film footage was almost always of the most outrageously dressed participants). In cities across the US, Pride parades included contingents from organizations that could help people get tested and treated. The bonus was always free condoms, tossed by...