193 Reasons to Have Pride: Part 3

Because
IT ISN’T SUMMER WITHOUT CAMP
For one week in July and August, gay families converge at the Feather River Camp in Quincy, Calif., for a week of hiking, biking, kayaking, and more on the water. Camp It Up! offers fun for parents and their kids, but there are also sleepaway camp options for LGBTQ teens and the kids of LGBTQ parents. Camp Ten Trees hosts two one-week options at its camp in the Pacific Northwest, while campers looking to leave the country can check out Canada’s Camp Fyrefly. And for teens from religious backgrounds looking to come to terms with their sexuality, the Naming Project hosts a weeklong camp in Minnesota.

 Because
MALLY LLOYD AND KATHERINE RAGSDALE ARE MARRIED
Two women tying the knot might have been a reason to have pride in 2000, but in 2011 we’re proud because two female Episcopal priests got married—to each other! In 2009 delegates at the General Convention of the Episcopal Church voted to allow bishops to decide whether to bless same-sex marriages. And then in January of this year, Mally Lloyd, an official in the Episcopal diocese of Massachusetts, and Katherine Ragsdale, dean of the Episcopal Divinity School, were married in a ceremony in Boston by Bishop M. Thomas Shaw. Amen!

Because
DAVID MIXNER’S ACTIVISM NOW SPANS MORE THAN 40 YEARS OF TIRELESS WORK
Heroes are everywhere in the movement, but author and activist Mixner is one of our most inspiring, from his work for the No on 6 campaign (against a ballot measure that would have cost California gay schoolteachers their jobs, as dramatized in Milk) to the defeat of Prop. 64 (which would have quarantined people with AIDS) to his very visible protests against his friend Bill Clinton’s DADT policy. We wish him many more years of bold activism.

Because
WE CAN WORK A RED CARPET
Oscar pundit Dave Karger, a gay senior writer for Entertainment Weekly, was enlisted as the official red carpet greeter and interviewer for the 2011 Academy Awards, following in the footsteps of Robert Osborne and the late Army Archerd.

Because
BOSTON HERALD SPORTSWRITER STEVE BUCKLEY CAME OUT
Boston Herald sportswriter Steve Buckley had intended for years to tell his readers that he’s gay, but life kept getting in the way. Prompted by youth suicides and antigay violence, he finally broke the news this January, too late to be read by his late mother, who years earlier had urged him to write the column.