What’s So Important About Pride?

~ When asked to write something for the bulletin for Pride of Saint Margaret, I had to first think about the word “pride” and how it applied to me.  I’m proud of my college degrees—I worked hard for them.  I’m proud of the paint job inside my house—I painted every inch of it myself.  In addition to my own accomplishments, I’m proud of those of my Irish ancestors.  I’m proud of my father’s service in WWII.  I’m proud that my mother was an artist at Hallmark.  I’m proud of my great grandmother who started her own business by turning her home into a boarding house when she was widowed at an early age.  I’m proud of all those ancestral legends, but am I proud of just being Irish?  I’m not so sure about that.  After all, it took no effort on my part nor on the part of any ancestors.

I reflected a bit more on the idea of pride by thinking about its opposite—shame.  Shame is not the same as guilt.  Guilt is an internal function that corrects us when we know or think we’ve done something wrong—even if no one knows about it.  Shame is a social function; it’s people and institutions around us telling us that what we have done—or who we are—is wrong.  I know my ancestors were made to feel shame for just being Irish.  They then did what so many in this country’s history have done; they responded to shame with pride.  Just like Loretta Lynn singing about pride to be a coal miner’s daughter, they formed associations and put on parades to let the world know they would not be shamed for being Irish. They would be proud.  My great grandmother—an illiterate woman, a beer drinker, the oldest of 13 children, escaping an arranged marriage—all the Irish stereotypes of the time—would be proud to be Irish.

That brought me around to thinking about my pride to be a gay person, and how that has come out of what was once shame.  This month, my husband and I celebrated our thirtieth anniversary of our first date, and the tenth anniversary of our legal wedding.  Looking back on 1995 when our relationship began, it wasn’t very easy, and there was a lot of shame.  We’re fortunate that we came from supportive families, but it’s hard to communicate to people now just how much distrust we had of the public.  I was afraid (ashamed?) to mention anything about David when I interviewed for jobs.  When we went on a vacation, the desk clerk asked, “You have a reservation for just one king-sized bed; don’t you want two beds?” It took us years, but we had to grow some armor to combat these subtle shamings, and that armor is pride, pride just for being gay.

My relationship with the Church is deep.  I spent a year in seminary in 1987-88.  I have worked as a lay man in various ministries since then.  My dissertation was on the experiences of LGBT students in Catholic high schools.  While doctrine hasn’t changed much since the 1980s, the pastoral tone has.  To have a pope who said, “Of course we can bless those in same-sex unions,” and who included transgender people liturgies, has been unimaginable.  It was probably unimaginable even to Pope Francis when he was a young priest in the 1980s.  It’s an achievement we can be proud of.

During the Summer months, this column will be highlighting the good work and parishioners involved in one of our various Social Justice Ministries.  Each week, we will feature an article from a different ministry, written by one if its members, as a reflection on the calling to Catholic Social Teaching at St. Margaret of Scotland.