Happy Pride Month everyone! I really like the month of June for many reasons:
– the weather is usually warm without being completely stifling hot;
– I can still remember the countdown till the end of school as a child, and see the excitement of it in my own kid;
– swimming, camping and boating season really gets started for my family;
– it is the start of getting a summer full of good local produce; and
– it is Pride Month.
I am not a member of the LGBTQIA2S+ community, but I love Pride. I love Pride as a heterosexual, binary, cisgendered, Caucasian, Christian minister who identifies as male.
There may be words in that last sentence that some people might not recognize, so I’ll break them down very quickly:
– heterosexual – I’m attracted to members of the opposite sex;
– binary – I’m comfortable finding my identity in the historical traditional gender identities of male/female; and
– cisgendered – I identify with the gender (in my case male) that I was assigned at birth.
I’m assuming we are all good with Caucasian, Christian, minister and male.
All of these identities that I have might make some question why I love Pride so much. To be honest, for me right now in this time and space, I would say that it is my Christian identity that is giving me my joy for Pride the most.
I absolutely love the idea of celebrating who God made us to be.
Jesus is very clear in his teachings that we are to love each other as he loved us….and who did Jesus love? He loved everyone; he loved those who were on the outside of his society looking in and those who were on the inside looking out. He loved people for who they were, for who God made them to be.
And he called us to do the same.
I love the diversity in creation, I love the diversity in the human race, I love the diversity in our communities.
We all make each other stronger, we all bring something to this world that someone else doesn’t, and we all should be celebrated for that unique, integral part of creation that God made each of us to be.
I love Pride. I love that our community has events on during this month to celebrate who we truly are as a community, to give space to celebrate who each of us truly are as God made us.
Happy Pride month everyone!
Submitted by Mark Laird, DM Drayton United Church
