Shopping for Pride Merch
My first NPR commentary, three years ago, was about buying a rainbow flag. It's more controversial now than ever. WRITTEN & ILLUSTRATED by PETER MOORE
SUNDAY WAS THE BIG PRIDE-FEST in downtown Fort Collins. Library Park, a block from my house, was home to a big, beautiful crowd of humans of all stripes, including many rainbow stripes. The variety of outfits and hairdos and relationships was thrilling—the full colorful spectrum of love, of identity, of pride, on display.
Our world seems to be shrinking right now, from Pride observances on the White House lawn to hate-legislation advancing in capitols across the land. In fact, love is the answer. So more love = better love. I admired the infinite variety of love (OK, lust too) on display, including the young woman holding hands with her girlfriend, and wearing a tiny tee-shirt that pronounced her a “Vagitarian.”
I wonder if there’s a cookbook?
Immersion in that crowd forced me to reflect on the metamorphosis of my lifetime. I went from being rather flamboyant teen who lived in fear of being called “gay,” to a college sophomore who was shocked when my professor’s boyfriend planted a wet one on my lips at a drunken party, to a non-practicing heterosexual living in terror in NYC when AIDS devastated Greenwich Village. I was reflexively leaning away from people I didn’t understand, expressing themselves in ways that spooked me.
Until it no longer did.
My church threw a drag Christmas spectacular last December, and it was indeed spectacular. I was finally able to relish the performance of a giant man in a dress who sang in a breathtaking falsetto. There’s so much beauty available in the world, if we’re just able open our eyes, and ears, and hearts, and see it.
Like that Pride flag currently flapping outside my door, love is multi-colored, multi-faceted, multi-multi-multi thing. Long may it wave.
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I’M A FLAG GUY. Old Glory flaps outside my house most days, to honor America, and to reclaim that particular symbol from guys who roar around town in pickups, burning coal and raising hell. But hey, I can wave a flag, too, which made me a little jealous of a neighbor of mine, who has been flying a Pride flag for years.
Rainbows are rare and beautiful in nature, but on Olive Street in Fort Collins, there’s always one brightening the neighborhood as well. So, when Pride Month hit this year, I wanted a rainbow flag.
The flag’s designer, Gilbert Baker, was a gay man and a drag queen. He designed it in 1978, at the suggestion of Harvey Milk—one of the first openly gay people elected in the United States, on the San Francisco board of supervisors.
This is how Baker described his flag: hot pink for sex–first things first, right?--red for life, orange for healing, yellow for sunlight, green for nature, turquoise for art, indigo for harmony, and violet for spirit. I wanted all of those at my house!
So I shopped for a Pride flag to call my own. It didn’t go so well. Michael’s craft store was talking a big game online, but the Pride merch was in the bargain bin by the time I got there. Starbucks’ measly offering of two designer hot cups shouted “hope nobody notices!”, not pride. Party City was selling a rainbow-balloon arch for sixty dollars. But that’s not an option for year-round display. I’d also heard rumors of a rainbow-layer cake at Costco, but its bakery was fresh out.
Actually, Costco’s not a bad place to go if Pride is on your shopping list. The Human Rights Campaign, a diligent monitor of gay rights, gives the retailer high marks for its workforce protections and inclusive benefits. And I couldn’t help but note a trans person unremarkably working a long checkout line there. Nothing to see here, people. Just heave those impractically large items onto the conveyor and move along. Plus, Costco is selling Bud Light for just $22.99 a thirty-pack, whatever the Dylan-Mulvaney haters have to say about it.
That Bud Light thing is just a distraction, of course. Who cares? But here’s something worth noting: According to the Human Rights Campaign, a record 520 anti-LGBTQ+ bills advanced in state legislatures this year.
Will my little flag flap any of that away?
It’s important to remember that, during the Stonewall Uprising, the streets were anointed with gay protesters’--and cops’--blood. Pride month was born in violent protests. And now, all these years later, the battle continues—in state legislatures, in schools, around dinner tables, and weirdly, in big-box stores.
My friend Moe read about how Target had withdrawn some Pride merchandise, because of confrontations between customers and staff. So Moe sent a nice note to our local store manager, and learned that only one controversial brand–Abprallen–had been 86ed. She bought a Pride poster there with no problem. It says: Ask me about my pronouns.
While she was telling me this story, she was sitting with her back to a window that looked east from Old Town Fort Collins. Rain was coming down in buckets. As we talked, the sun burst through the clouds and a brilliant rainbow appeared against the dark clouds. Sex, life, light, nature, art, harmony, and spirit were all there—and so much more.
The Pride flag I eventually bought–from the online store at the Human Rights Campaign–didn’t hold a candle to that real rainbow. But someday, a worried queer kid might walk by my house and think, “Maybe I’m not alone in this world?” I sure hope so.
In any case, it will take more than drinking low-cal beer, or flying the right flag, to make the world safe for people who want to love who they love. Especially now, love needs all the support it can get.
“Let's make a law that gay people can have birthdays, but straight people get more cake—you know, to send the right message to kids.” —Bill Maher
Thanks for joining me here on the Road2Elsewhere. Please don’t kill me because of my Pride flag.
A very touching write up ❣️
The world needs more love, of whatever stripe one chooses. Love is love, dammit. We need more rainbows, too.... Thank you for writing this!