opinion.

So recently a rainbow stripe of road (crosswalks) have been painted down a main street in Toronto (Church st.). Some say for pride or awareness of the LGBT community but I believe it is doing two things only. Producing Toronto with more tourists and making a public spectacle out of LGBT. We as a community have taken this issue, a once anti-gay society and have become more respectful, understanding, kind and have provided a safer environment, but we’ve also taken this issue, this one thing and publicized it to such an extreme that it has lost its once powerful meaning to me. Why must we parade around Toronto, calling it a pride parade, wasting tax dollars to put on such a pseud and using even more money to paint a rainbow up a street? How does that make sense? But that has become the norm now with this ONE topic.

What if we did that with all our issues in history? All the ones that have been overcome, just like this one? What would our cities look like now? For slavery, if we hung nooses from lamp posts and trees as a constant reminder of where we’ve come, or if we plastered the streets with posters professing women’s rights and we had a separate booth for women to vote in during elections as a reminder… because that is what this rainbow road is, a reminder, a permanent reminder, but why is it necessary and why is it more important than all the other issues in history? It isn’t necessary to any degree, our day to day lives are the reminders of where we have come from. Every time we see a person apart of LGBT voting or parenting an adopted child or with a marriage license, those are all reminders enough! We have come very far as a people, just like when I see my black neighbours put up their Ghana flag and no one defaces their property, or my black friends and classmates who are able to sit next to me and not get beaten or harassed or how my mum was able to vote this past election OR my two close friends who are lesbian and bi-sexual were able to attend prom together without being kicked out, separated or alienated. None of these people have to continue to perform extreme acts to show that they have rights, they just go on with their day and that is enough.

After saying all of that I am not suggesting that gaining these rights was done so easily by just going on with your day. In history, drastic things were often the only way to gain respect and power, but now being 2014, already succeeding in providing a better space for everyone we still feel it’s necessary to paint on a rainbow! It’s overkill. It’s not an action for gaining acceptance, it’s just a symbol after the fact.

Now for those who are reading this and are questioning my part in all of it, freeze for a second and let me finish. I believe we as a unit of different orientations, races, religions, cultures, social classes, etc, are all ONE and that is an important fact for anyone to remember, and as for me, a heterosexual female, white, Christian, I am a constant ally to many varieties of people who are at all opposite to me, which doesn’t mean beneath, or undervalued, just opposite… like a Homosexual, male, Nepali, Muslim. However, going back to the rainbow road, it should not have been done. The rights of the LGBT were already fulfilled so this in no way was a form of protest, to try to accomplish something, it was just an act that wasted funds, an impulse. LGBT have rights! They can get married, have pensions and benefits, can adopt and are protected by the government from any anti-gay propaganda in Canada, etc.

As an ally I used my voice to explain to people how the LGBT need to be treated as equals that was the whole point! Now, as an ally I feel like a hypocrite to the LGBT. I say over and over “equal”, being “equal”, “equality is important”, but that doesn’t seem to be the case anymore. They have parades and flags and rainbow roads. How are all these extra things allowing the LGBT to be treated equally? I’ve asked some of my peers who are a part of the LGBT, what they think about the parades and the road. They say that they are more embarrassed NOW to say they are LGBT because they don’t want to associate their personal orientation and life choices with such unserious gimmicks. They said it is taking their “rights” too far. Being straight, if there was a parade for that, it would probably be seen as unneeded, stupid and laughable. Well… in an “equal” way, so would a gay pride parade and so would a rainbow road! If it isn’t looked at as that, are these two varieties of people really equal?!