is the perfect opportunity for you to come out to them. Bring them to the next parade or demonstration. Why not ask them to march with you?

NOT DIFFERENT?

There are gay people who see no need to march because they do not believe that significant differences exist between gays and straights. "I'm no different from the next guy, except sexually," said an acquaintance of mine. "Why should I march down the street screaming 'Gay is Good' when I'm just like everyone else except that I happen to like men. Why be proud? It's not an important difference."

This argument just won't wash. We are different. (Thank heaven!) When I was just coming out, I had felt otherwise for a while. Gradually, as I have become more self-accepting, I've recognized that I'm not just like anyone else, except... My perspective, my patterns of interaction, my creativity, my entire consciousness have always been shaped and colored by an apartness or distance from the conventional assumptions of everyday heterosexual reality. Gay is good. Creative homosexuals have a special vision of the games straights play, and we can often see through a lot of the ideological excrement associated with those games.

But we do play our own games, and these often include as much (or more) sexist objectification and manipulative use of each other as is found in the hetero world. This is the result of oppression. And being oppressed for our sexuality is another way in which we are different from straights. This oppression ranges from the obvious murders and assaults upon us to discrimination in jobs and in housing to far more subtle and hence more treacherous kinds of abuse.

PSYCHIC VIOLENCE

Psychic violence takes its toll in negative self-images, which must be overcome in our personal liberation and in our common struggle. When gays treat each other poorly (as we all too often do), it is due usually to a lack of self-esteem. This is unfortunate, for we already have enough to do combatting the continued, day-to-day and year-in-and-year-out oppression by 48 VECTOR

DO IT!

ENOUGH

COME

PARA

POLITICO

LIBERTAG

straights who are sometimes evil or sometimes well-meaning but dreadfully unenlightened.

The price of accepting this oppression and not allowing ourselves to express our true and deeply felt emotions is a slowkilling of our very beings. "We must love one another or die," Auden's advice to all humanity, has special meaning for his gay brothers and sisters. When we learn to love each other, we must all so teach the world to love along with us.

So we must march because we are different. We have a long history and a current plenitude of great and creative men and women in many fields of human endeavor, and so we are proud. We are subject to political, economic, social, and psychological oppression, and so

LOS PR

M. P. D.

PRESOS

we are angry. We must show our strength and indicate that we won't put up with being put down anymore.

Not only will this produce positive political results, but it will also enhance the self-images of each of us and our collective awareness as communities. In no small measure will the presence of a strong community of proud individuals bring hope and confidence to gays who are still learning not to hide and hate themselves.

IMAGES

Photo: Guy Corry

But what kind of images are we providing for each other and for the straights we're trying to influence? A friend's mother living in Manhattan's East 80's once asked, "Convertibles filled with