By Dawn Wolfe Gutterman
Pride means hugs. New and old friends hug each other, partners hug each other – in public – and PFLAG parents hug everyone.
Pride means activism, from the Human Rights Campaign to Peace Action of Michigan to Students for Animal Rights.
Pride means community. And commerce. And artwork. And kitsch. And more calories from carnival food than can be walked off in a month of festivals.
The following volunteers, vendors and participants took a moment from their busy day to tell BTL what Pride means to them:
"Pride means to me kind of being proud of who I am, and who we are as a community, and standing up for our rights."
– Jessie Kidder, Michigan Equality volunteer
"Pride means me being able to be me – and you being able to be you – with everybody to be able to be exactly what we are. Pride means loving ourselves, and loving each other, and really being one big community all together."
– Rachel Crandall, executive director of TransGender Michigan
"Pride is a way that we can share our love for each other with the community and our pride for each other. Where we've already come to a really good place in ourselves with ourselves and the community – we want to show an example. We want people to know that you can be gay, you can do what you want, you can be respectful and you can obtain your goals, and you can love through all this, too."
– David Daniels, president, Detroit Icon
"Pride is something incredible for our entire community to come out of the closet, show our pride, show that we're out, show that we're powerful, and one day we get to celebrate that. We should be coming out every day, and we're very proud to celebrate our community today and show all of Ferndale and all of metro Detroit that we're here.
– Sean Kosofsky, director of policy for the Triangle Foundation
"Well, we take great pride in being mothers of gay children, and we're supportive of them and we want the public to be inclusive of our children….So we support the Pride fest every year, and we're happy to be here."
– Sonja Langdon, PFLAG mom
"It's a way to get out into the community and show that there's a lot of different types of social organizations where if you're gay you can be who you are and do whatever activity is available."
– Joe Bartus, Motor City Tennis Alliance
"Just a show of support for all the gay and lesbian type of people, and a chance to get together and meet everybody."
– Michael Alexander, Pride celebrant
"Pride is when we can actually get together and celebrate and have fun and eat and see each other all together and that for the one day of the year we're the majority."
– Jan Stevenson, publisher, Between The Lines
"Pride means being able to be out amongst people that are open to diversity and being able to express who we are today – and show the community that we're just like them."
– Brooke Adams ALORDE Collective
"I just come out here to have a good time, be entertained and meet people and everything."
– Vic, Pride celebrant dancing in the middle of Nine Mile Road
"One of the things that Pride means to me is to have confidence in yourself and to be true to yourself and to know who you are."
– Barbara Rybczynski, Bath and Booty
"Pride means I can be who I am without having do deal with crap from other people."
– Hieu Nguyen, Pride celebrant
"Pride is the spirit that helps us to go forward together to help us to accomplish all the important good things that we can't do alone."
– Helen Weber, Ferndale City Council member
"Pride is fantastic. It's an opening of hearts, minds, and spirit. It's a wonderful day."
– Judy Ray, proprietor, Windhaven
