wants that to be true and works for that to be true, but it isn’t true.
“G.O.A.L.’s presence at Pride gives people the false impression that the NYPD is an ally to queer people. We are glad that the Anti-Violence Project was finally able to get HOP to listen, but HOP’s refusal to recognize the years of work Reclaim Pride has dedicated to championing these issues in HOP Town Halls, direct meetings between the two groups, and in our Marches is erasure of the worst kind.” The original decision, announced last week, sparked days of controversy voiced by the Gay Officers Action League (GOAL).” In a press release issued shortly after Jason Rosenberg, an organizer with RPC, commented, Instinct ran a story just last week when “Heritage of Pride, reversed it’s decision to ban gay armed police officers in uniform from marching in this year’s Pride Parade last night. Queer Liberation March for Black Lives and Against Police Brutality. They produce a big party, a festival, rather than a political event for the LGBTQIA community.
Walker, an organizer with the RPC spoke with me and had this to say about HOP, Heritage of Pride (HOP), has come under major scrutiny in the past years for their alleged refusal to work with community groups and LGBTQ activists in the production of the Pride parade. Queer Liberation March for Black Lives and Against Police Brutality, June 28, 2020. The presence of a dozen police officers at every intersection of the Parade marked the collusion of the non-profit board and the very instance of state sponsored oppression. The imposition of barricades along the parade route separated the participants from its audience, turning the Pride March into a entertainment venue instead of a true expression of our cultural legacy. Overflowing with corporate floats and at the service of corporate money, the Pride Parade had become a new symbol of gay for pay. Community organizers, activists, and queers of conscience banded together after years of seeing the annual NYC Pride March transformed into a 7, then 9, then 12 hour circus. The complex proliferation of Parades as the model for Pride Celebrations internationally is deeply disturbing… to many people in the LGBTQIA2S+ communities. RPC estimates that 45,000 people followed the same route as the very first march – the Christopher Street Liberation Day March – returning to the “traditional meaning and measure of a march.” On their website RPC explains how the QLM came to light, Born from the desire to bring Pride back to its roots of a rebellion the Reclaim Pride Coalition organized the first QLM in 2019 on the 50th Anniversary of the Stonewall Riots.