Anti-Gay Bigots Again Confronted at Modesto PRIDE

A young woman swings on a dummy dressed as a Mormon at the Central Valley Queer Coalition table in Modesto.

Pride may have originally been canceled this year, but its resurrection rocked. The new organizers got San Francisco Pride out to represent. Finally.

Central Valley Queer Coalition (CVQC) had our first booth, distributed our first magazine, and put flyers out letting people know about the previous day’s hate crime in Santa Maria where a gay waiter was stabbed in the throat just for being “out” and gay. We met a lot of new people who came by to “BASH A BIGOT!” as we had a martial arts dummy dressed up like a Mormon bicycling religious salesperson a.k.a a bigot. Even a good number of children angry about how their gay parent/s are treated came to knock the bigot around and let out frustration. From the popularity of our booth’s bigot bash, we can see just how many of us still feel powerless in this struggle, and desperately need a productive outlet for our rage.

HRC and other mainstream groups sent salespeople to our event, but those groups still fight only for gay assimilationist’s right’s and mostly all they do is gather money and send out masses of emails pretending they are making progress with the (in)justice system, and the political lemmings. They protect with their money those of us clean enough and nice enough looking to pass as human beings to politicians and bigots in charge of making and enforcing discriminatory laws against us. What about everyone else though? And what about all of those queers who brag about being “totally non-violent?” Apparently they don’t realize how stupid they sound, or how lucky they are if they truly live in a world where violence doesn’t touch them- ever. But that’s too good to be true for most of us.

On the entertainment front, Modesto Pride had its first Drag King, Freddie Prinze Charming, who travelled all the way from Arizona to entertain us. The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence came too and were fabulously magnificent and demanding of attention like always. Love or hate them, you’re not going to be able to ignore them and they don’t give a fuck what you think anyways. This seems to be becoming a much more popular sentiment in the queer community, as was witnessed when our usual local hatemongering circus troupe of fundamentalist bores showed up at our Pride to threaten and attempt to intimidate us.

Local community groups such as Modesto Anarcho, Modesto Copwatch, Stanislaus County Radical Mental Health and others joined us in intercepting these fascists before they even managed to get their hate signs hoisted, and their duct-taped bibles out. A banner reading, “Reclaim Pride: Bash Back!” was marched through the park in pursuit of the fascists who were attempting to remain incognito while taking pictures, and documenting all of the queers in celebration. What do they use all of this information for? It scares me to even try to imagine, though over half of it is likely for the miserable, guilt filled masturbation fantasies of these fucked up closet-cases. One organizer who had originally asked us to stop bigot bashing as we were just fueling their fire eventually broke down himself and shouted to a closet-case, “Don’t I know you? I fucked you in the park last year. Get the hell outta here hypocrite!”

Cameras were rolling on both sides as a well known bigot, 'Juaquin' (anyone know which church this fool is with?) threatened to call the cops after being “assaulted” by a queer woman. The alleged assault consisted of being touched on the shoulder and being told to “get the fuck out of the park. Bigots aren’t welcome.” The pathetic threat he made was quickly laughed off as the wimpy fascist making it didn’t even believe his own bullshit, and at least 4 pigs were already present and watching everyone carefully. We were also able to use our “Reclaim Pride” banner to block cameras and “herd” bigots away from people they were zeroed in on and trying to intimidate.

The event organizers who had been tediously continuing to insist we “let the situation go” finally joined us in fucking with the bigots. None of us can afford to ignore these people who are so ruthless in their campaign to exterminate the queer community. “We ignored the Germans and they killed at least 6 million people,” was the final point of conviction for those who were initially too hesitant and scared to stand up for themselves. We can’t make the same mistake twice. Fascists can never be tolerated.

As more and more Pride goers gathered in solidarity, we were able to join hands in a huge circle, and exclude the bigots, pushing them further and further back, out of the festival. We chanted over their rants while The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence blessed our circle with glitter and love. We followed this up by posing and taking some glamour shots with a bigot who had mistakenly, we assume, brought a big cardboard sign stating he was a “GAY PERVERT.”

The bigots were outnumbered and overpowered the entire time they were out at the park. Queers kissed, danced, and continued to have fun. Some even tried “killing them with kindness” and told the fascists, they too, might find actual love and happiness if they stopped preaching hate and violence, and believing every word out of every book they read (meaning the bible since bigots don’t seem to believe in self- education or reading books with factual information written in them). Other queers let these fascists know that it wouldn’t be their first (or last) visit to jail if they got taken in right then for kicking fascist ass. (My personal favorite). People also “fell” and “stumbled” back into bigots to knock their signs down.

We got our final frustrations out about not really being able to have a Pride without bigot presence –since they got full police protection as usual- by having a water balloon fight amongst friends. We also witnessed and got footage of parking pigs ticketing the Dykes on Bikes for parking in their official, designated area, BEFORE the festival was even over. Yet, we continue to pretend that the police are indifferent and there to protect both sides.

A local dyke I met that day while protesting against fascists kept telling me to “just ignore them.” But I can’t ignore them. “These people are the reason my partner and I get chased when riding bicycles in the evening, and that I get yelled at when I walk alone and called “dyke” as if that’s a bad thing. I’ve been lucky-SO FAR- that I’ve only experienced getting shit thrown at me from cars instead of people stopping to gaybash me. Or rape me, cuz these religious bigots have a special term for that: Corrective rape. This supposedly fixes us and forces us into liking dick.” (The reasoning and logic are about as sound as all other fascist theory).

We told this dyke stories of local queers being bashed, then left on the street by the police who found them after being told, “If you want to play the victim and go to the hospital, then you’re gonna play the criminal first and go to the station for being drunk in public” all to no effect. Her response: “I’m not afraid of them. If they beat or kill someone they get arrested and go to prison.”

Well, some of us are still very afraid and have every reason to be. This kind of apathy from a fellow queer is a major reason we can’t afford to rest for one second in showing resistance to oppressors of all kinds.

Fundamentalists are gathering and organizing and preaching to their followers about the need to rob us of more and more rights. Where are we organizing for ourselves? Too often, in little isolated cells throughout the country. They want us “cured” which is double talk for locking us up in internment camps, and doing whatever they want to our bodies and minds, all with god’s blessing.

Well fuck that and fuck them! If you want to stay as “free” as we are today it’s time to drop your non-violent, indifferent, sit-on-ur-ass talking but never acting, routine. It doesn’t work in case you haven’t noticed.
These people want to see us annihilated and destroyed and for once I’m not being dramatic!

So…
Don’t be naïve!
Join together and continue to resist bigots and the police protecting them!
Fight Back in every way you can, every chance you get!

- CVQC -
Contact us @ centralvalleyqueercoalition@gmail.com