Morgan Hill City Councilman Rene Spring delivered the following comments at a June 1 rainbow flag raising ceremony at City Hall Plaza on Peak Avenue. “As I prepared for what I wanted to say at our local ceremony, I googled around and came across an amazingly well written speech by Senior Chief Hospital Corpsman Tom Guest. His words speak for themselves. I found them so fitting for our ceremony. He’s one of my heroes!,” Spring said, including portions of Guest’s speech in his comments at the local ceremony. The flag will continue to fly over City Hall throughout June, commemorating the month as LGBTQ Pride Month in Morgan Hill.
Good morning. My name is Rene Spring. I am Morgan Hill’s first openly gay councilmember.
Thank you all for coming. We are here today to celebrate the beginning of LGBTQ Pride Month, as it’s being celebrated in many communities across our region, throughout the country and even in many countries all over the world.
It is great to see so many of you joining this event today and to show your solidarity and respect for the LGBTQ community! I did not expect this great turnout! Homophobia, biphobia and transphobia still exist. Events like today are a signal that we need to change that and need to embrace each other even more.
In my short speech today, I will use the generic term “gay” instead of the acronym “LGBTQ.”
Partly because it is the word I am most comfortable with, it is the word I feel is most universal and it is the word I am least likely to get tongue tied over.
PRIDE. What exactly do we mean by GAY PRIDE? Does that mean we are proud to be gay? Isn’t that sort of like being proud to be short, or proud to have blue eyes? We really have nothing to do with the fact that we are gay.
I started to realize I was different at about the age of 12 or 13. By the age of 16 or 17, I was certain I was gay. I was never PROUD of it. I was ashamed; I was embarrassed; I was afraid. I came out to my family and friends at the age of 17, and to my surprise, their response was: “Well, finally, we knew!” I was lucky to be embraced by a loving family and wonderful friends, but I also realize not all are that lucky yet.
We are born gay. And if you are gay, you can deny it, you can pretend, you can act. But you cannot change that fact.
Gay pride is not about being proud of the fact that we happen to be gay. It’s about NOT allowing others to make us feel shame because we are gay. It’s about NOT allowing others to define our worth based on our sexuality,
It’s about NOT allowing others to define the love we share as less pure, less real, less deserving of recognition.
Gay pride is about owning who we are. Gay pride is about valuing the diversity that is humanity in all its varied presentations.
According to the Flags of the World Project, which unravels the history behind many of the world’s flags, the original Pride Rainbow Flag was designed by a San Francisco individual named Gilbert Baker who just recently passed away. The rainbow flag is also symbolic because of its diversity.
As you know, Morgan Hill is a very diverse community, in many ways. I believe that strength and solidarity can be found in diversity. Through this strength and solidarity, we can build communities which are based on the foundations of acceptance and inclusivity. Diversity is not just about recognizing our differences; rather it is about acknowledging our uniqueness and individuality.
In acknowledging this uniqueness, it’s evident that we’re actually very much the same. We are people with different identities and layers—but people nonetheless.
Welcome to LGBTQ Pride month in Morgan Hill—the first one ever in Morgan Hill!
