By Karen Ocamb

Over 300,000 people showed up for the 36th annual Christopher Street West Pride Parade according to a spokesperson for the West Hollywood Sheriff's station, and the parade made history. In a fitting tribute to the 1969 Stonewall riots—when drag queens fought back against the umpteenth police harassment raid of the Greenwich Village gay bar—for the first time LAPD Chief William Bratton and L.A. County Sheriff Lee Baca marched together in uniform with a contingent of 165 openly LGBT law enforcement officers and their families walking behind.

Oh, you missed that story on your local news? Nothing in the “hometown” paper of record, the L.A. Times? They did have that sweet picture of the kid sitting on his dad's shoulders and local TV stations also had shots of the less colorful among us. But for the most part, they went for the camp they imagine gays to be—gyrating half-naked men and streams of characters in what they described as “costumes,” sure to wind up in a revised edition of the Gay Agenda video that religious right wingers like Rev. Lou Sheldon love to mass produce and distribute to Congress.

Before President Clinton, when we were dying en masse from the buzz saw of homophobia and AIDS, we cared about such things. We “educated” the media about Stonewall and the meaning of the parade and why “pride” trumps suicide. But with access to drug cocktails after 1995, as we started to live longer and talked about “managing” HIV, as we started feeling that full equality was just around the corner, we allowed ourselves to experience burn-out. Then we got lazy.

Today, we're kind of shell-shocked, disbelieving that we're actually going backwards, losing our rights and funding—either insidiously, behind the scenes, or through the strategic use of anti-gay rhetoric to get someone elected or pass legislation. We represent the corrosion of Western civilization.

Remember the Pete Wilson campaign for the anti-immigrant Prop. 187—the one that showed grainy black and white video of undocumented workers scrambling across the Mexican border at a car check-point—the one that made Latinos look like cockroaches scurrying away under the light? That's how the religious right views us—like poisonous cockroaches infecting and eating away at the core of society.

We are partly to blame for that image because we have forgotten that we have to keep fighting until we actually have our rights. Over 300,000 showed up for the parade, history was made, and we don't merit a story? It's the 25th anniversary of AIDS, millions have died, and the L.A. Times treats us to a story about how tough it is for celebrities to choose their causes. PBS/Frontline had an excellent two-parter on AIDS at 25 and, as it turns out, there is a wonderful California version on the KCET Web site. The problem is it was only online and no one knew about it.

KCET—our public station—also failed to produce anything on air or online commemorating Gay Pride month. They used to air Before Stonewall and After Stonewall and Times of Harvey Milk—and do fund-raising specifically targeted to gay people. No more. I guess they don't want our money. Thank heavens they still air In the Life, though Sunday night at 11 p.m. is hardly appointment TV.

It's hard to remember that KCET once stood up to Cardinal Roger Mahoney, who was trying to prevent them from airing Stop the Church, about ACT UP/New York's take over of St. Patrick Cathedral in 1991 to protest the Catholic Church's position on condoms and lack of concern about people dying from AIDS. Mahoney was even caught in a public lie and the head of KCET at the time called him on it. Those were the days of the NEA 4 and Congressional attempts to eliminate the Public Broadcasting System. Why is KCET more cowardly now than then? Could it be because gay people were more visible and demanding coverage?

But perhaps the most insulting slap in the face is from professional pollsters who continue to treat the LGBT community as an issue or a “special interest” rather than a demographic, as they do with gender, blacks, Hispanics, Asians, Christians, Jews, etc. Instead we wind up sandwiched between “special interest” questions such as “Does anyone in your household own a gun?” and “Is anyone in your household a member of a union?”

L.A. Times reader's representative Kent Zelas responded to my question about why we were not counted in the June primary exit poll this way: “I'm hearing from poll editor Susan Pinkus that, while the gay demographic was considered for the questionnaire this time around, because this was a state primary election (with low expected turnout, especially of gays on the Republican side), it was thought doubtful that statistically significant data could be gained from its inclusion among the subgroups. It's believed the fall election could offer a better opportunity, though.”

I don't know where Pinkus got her information, but the primaries were incredibly important to the LGBT community, or anyone who supported or voted against the marriage equality bill. Ask Judy Chu and Gloria Negrete McLeod, for instance, who won with heavy support from the LGBT community in races where their opponents were anti-gay.

But the response is bogus anyway. “Doubtful that statistically significant data could be gained?” In the March 8, 2005, mayoral primary, the Times registered gays at 8 percent of the vote, hardly a statistically insignificant demographic. The Times excluded us from the June run-off, which Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa noted to LGBT leaders—recalling that gays supported him by 72 percent in his 2001 run—according to an L.A. Times poll. Gays generally poll higher than Asians—but would the Times call Asians “statically insignificant?”

So whether it's 300,000 or 8 percent, we count. Now we need to do something about it. Pressure the media, and for all our sakes, register to vote—then actually vote this November.