2011-06-25: Berlin celebrates being … what? queer? weird? or just liveable?
Today is the day that Berlin celebrates its CSD parade. Maybe I can be just a little bit proud about my native city that the celebration of “not being the same as everyone else” (for Austinites: “being weird”) is held in such high regard around here. Gay or straight, flush or broke, it doesn’t matter so much around here.
Berlin (and other German cities, notably Cologne) has embraced Christopher Street Day or CSD rather early, to the point that many party people out on the streets will not know what the original phrase meant, or where it came from. It goes back to the Stonewall Riots in NYC on June 28th, 1969.
While I myself am heterosexual, I actively support the freedom of people to live their lives unmolested, whatever their sexual orientation or preference. And from what I have seen today (and over and over again throughout the years), Berlin as a whole feels the same way. That, to me, is “Berlin Pride” – the pride of being part of a city that lets people be happy with what they are.
