Nine years ago, the Pulse nightclub shooting happened — a wake-up call to the unfortunate reality: gun violence. Only this time, it wasn’t a school, synagogue, or a church. It was aimed directly at my LGBTQ+ community.

Forty-nine innocent partygoers were taken from their families. From us — our chosen family.

Lives filled with promise, violently stolen in the name of hate — Islamic hate. Closeted, extremist, vile, ISIS-loving hate — to be exact.

You’d think after this heinous crime — an Islamist lunatic targeting a gay nightclub — it would’ve been a forever wake-up call. Radical Islamists not welcome! Especially within the community I’ve proudly belonged to, marched with, fought for, and stood alongside since the 1970s.

Coincidentally, it was the morning of LA Pride, literally the wake up call was from my friend in New York City to say, “Can you believe what happened? Turn on your TV.” The only thing on the news and every website was Pulse. As the horror stories came to light from survivors and family members, the fury was rising and palpable.

To make matters worse, as if Pulse wasn’t horrifying enough, that very same morning — just hours later — a 20-year-old man from Indiana was arrested in Santa Monica with assault rifles, high-capacity magazines, and chemicals for a possible bomb. He told police he was headed to the West Hollywood Pride parade. While he never explicitly stated his intent, he was armed to the teeth and not legally allowed to even have those weapons. That’s how close we came to a second massacre on the same day.

The New York Times featured a story about Gays Against Guns, an impromptu group of activists many of whom had cut their teeth in ACT UP in the '80s fighting for AIDS medication. Their mission now: gun violence. I tracked down the lead organizer through Facebook and said, “How can I help?”

Later that morning, I took my dogs — Woodstock and Alfie — for a walk to check out the Pride Parade. There, in the thick of it, was the designated First Amendment soapbox — you know the one — where self-proclaimed “free speech warriors” are legally allowed to scream the vilest filth at gay passersby. My blood was boiling. I charged up to the douchebag and started screaming back.

A West Hollywood cop quickly intervened and shooed me away. He told me the man had every right as an American to say what he was saying. And that my offense came second to his freedom to be a scumbag. I won’t post the things he said. But you can imagine. It’s when I first said, “The First Amendment needs an amendment.” And that feels truer than ever.

Looking back, it’s almost 50 years ago, when I marched down Fifth Avenue in my very first Gay Pride parade. I’ll never forget that feeling — no fear, defiance, and the fire. We were here — we were queer — get used to it! We didn’t fight for rainbow-branded vodka. We fought to live free. To be safe. To walk down the street heads held high. Gay Pride indeed.

What do we have now stinking up the social media landscape and in the streets? Queers for Hamas? Gays for Palestine? Trans for Gaza? Marching in keffiyehs? Waving Hamas flags? Chanting “From the river to the sea” as if you could even find it on a damn map?

[SIDEBAR] Where are the LGBT elites now, as Emily Damari, a 28-year-old Israeli British lesbian, walks free after 500 days in Hamas captivity? Her queerness — kept secret to save her life — could’ve gotten her murdered in Gaza. No GLAAD tribute. No headlines in The Advocate. Just silence. The same crowd chanting “Free Palestine” ignored a queer woman who almost died in Palestine — simply for being queer.

And now — it’s not just that I feel betrayed. I am betrayed. By what once was my own community. At this point, I don’t even recognize what “gay” is supposed to mean anymore. Lately I’ve been saying: I’m homosexual… yes. Gay? No. Not if this is what it’s come to.

Let me remind you: In World War II, gays wore pink triangles. We were deported, imprisoned, murdered — right alongside the Jews.

Alas, take me back to a simpler time — when Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers were dancing on air in The Gay Divorcee, and “gay” meant elegance, rhythm, and maybe dancing cheek to cheek. Now? It’s all about ass cheeks and hashtags — marching to the beat of total TikTok foolishness.

It reminded me of the haunting monologue Pontius Pilate sings to Jesus in Jesus Christ Superstar:

Don’t let me stop your great self-destruction.
Die, if you want to, you misguided martyr!
I wash my hands of your demolition.
Die, if you want to, you innocent puppet!

I couldn’t have said it better. Especially when looking at today’s clinking, clanking, clattering collection of caliginous junk parading around annoying the hell out of me. This is the new Gay Pride - prancing around hoping to be thrown off a roof by someone you fetishize? Please, girl.

What infuriates me — will enflame them. Literally.

My Israeli husband, Shlomi — who speaks “broken English” (or as we lovingly call it, Shlominese) — refers to Tel Aviv Pride as the greatest event in the world. It seems to be the general consensus: as Gay Prides go, Tel Aviv sets the gold standard. Hotties for days. Only, in his charming English, he called it “Gay Prize.” And maybe he’s right. There’s something about that city — the beauty, the energy, the food — it does feel like a prize.

This year, Pride feels more like mourning. Mourning the loss of connection to a movement I once stood with, proudly and gracefully.

Still wishing everyone Happy Pride — no matter what.

Peace, ABE

PS…Since sometimes laughter is the best medicine that keeps us from completely losing it, here’s a little excerpt from my book Won’t Be Silent - Don’t Stop ‘til It Matters on the topic of gay marriage — or at least, the performance of it:

THE GAY DIVORCÉE

The art of gay weddings had not yet begun to litter the Sunday Style section of The New York Times when I attended my first gay wedding in Montecito, California, in the summer of 2000. It was a poetic affair held at a grand, sprawling Gilded Age estate owned by a friend who was in real estate and considered a magician at flipping the most exclusive properties in Southern California.

While updating one of those palatial digs, he made it the venue for his wedding to a queen he met online. By coincidence, I’d tricked his future betrothed years earlier when I lived in New York City — back when he had more hair and was fifteen pounds lighter.

But far be it from me to sound like a bitchy queen.

I don’t know about your experience with online dating, but heat-seeking for true romance by trolling the Internet’s M4M chat rooms rarely makes for happily-ever-after endings. This was before the triumphant, soul-crushing rise of online dating services like Match, eHarmony, and Grindr.

The wedding was an overtly spiritual affair with one hundred of the couple’s best-est-est friends in attendance sipping Negronis. We nibbled on lovely caviar and smoked salmon canapés, real crab cocktail parfaits, and avocado toast rounds. Limoncello shots were passed as the sun set over the Pacific Ocean.

The mountains of Montecito must be the “purple mountain majesties'' that we sing about in America the Beautiful.
Love was in the air — especially after three Negronis and two Limoncello shots.