It was more than 20 years ago — in 1997 — that I wrote a column about a local couple who had divorced after the husband came out as gay.
There were no real names used back then, although the woman regretted the story having to be “this complicated, this secretive” — and expressed hope some day the stigma associated with homosexuality would be reduced so both could come out of the closet.
In the meantime, I wrote, just call them Mary and Tom. And don’t try to figure out who they are.
I shake my head in amazement as I read that old story. It’s a similar reaction I get when I think back to the wall of anonymity we ran into a few years later when Beacon-News reporters tried to do a comprehensive series on gays and lesbians living and working in the Fox Valley. Few wanted to use their names, no one wanted to be photographed. And the project, not for lack of trying, was eventually scrapped.
How drastically things have changed … in our culture and particularly in our community.
When Aurora’s inaugural Pride Parade steps off at noon on Sunday, sponsors will include ComEd, as well as other large and small businesses, health and professional groups, even local churches.
And there will be around 60 marching units — including floats, a band, dancers and other musical entertainment, fire trucks and antique cars — which is the maximum suggested by the city to keep the event within a manageable two-hour time range.
What surprised parade organizer Gwyn Ciesla the most, she told me, was not so much the 150 to 200 employees from area Target stores who will be marching, but the fact there will be more than a dozen churches or Christian organizations taking part, as well as a synagogue.
That number, said Ciesla, “far outstripped my wildest dreams.”
Not that this parade has been without controversy. Supporters have maintained it will be a G-rated family affair, but some members of Aurora’s faith community expressed concerns about what a gay pride parade would entail. And there were also critics upset it would be held on Father’s Day, which is also the last day of the Blues on the Fox festival.
But Chuck Adams, who has lived here 15 years and co-founded Indivisible Aurora with wife Kimberly as part of a national progressive movement after the 2016 presidential election, insists “I would not change a thing” in how it all came together.
The controversy, said Adams, “lifted the profile” of the event, not only attracting media but local, state and national allies. And once the story broke, “the fundraising began.”
Getting so many churches involved, Adams added, “has been a singular pleasure to me,” in light of the early opposition from the faith community.
Several church leaders told me on Tuesday that, while they support the rights of any group to hold a parade as long as rules are followed, they remain disappointed and concerned about the way the city so enthusiastically endorsed this event.
Mayor Richard Irvin, the city’s first African-American mayor, certainly did just that, even referencing Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in February when urging officials to approve the parade permit. And on Tuesday night at the City Council meeting, Irvin presented a proclamation to parade organizers, declaring June as Pride Month in Aurora and specifically singling out the Sunday parade.
When Indivisible Aurora came up with the idea of a pride parade outside Chicago it wasn’t so much why Aurora but why not Aurora, the second largest city in the state and certainly one that has not only morphed from its blue-collar industrial roots to a more diverse and artistic community, it has passionately embraced that new identity.
Ciesla gives plenty of credit to the city for its cooperation, particularly the police department, which “has worked closely with us on safety and security issues.”
Officials indicated there will be more security at this event, not just because of possible protesters but in response to last summer’s violence in Charlottesville that put more cities on higher alert.
While there may be some Chicago folks who show up on Sunday, this first-ever suburban pride parade — there have been others downstate — is definitely “a Fox Valley and western suburbs event,” Ciesla said.
At one time, organizers considered adding a festival to the day but decided on just one event for this inaugural year so we could “knock it out of the park,” she noted.
There will also be plenty of shops and food vendors open for business, and Adams encourages people to come not just for the parade but to “hang out all day, eat breakfast or lunch and see what else is going on downtown.”
Ciesla, who has lived here for 12 years, says she’s hearing from plenty of older Fox Valley LGBT residents who have had a “foot out of the closet for a decade or more recently,” and who insist this event is “long overdue and can’t believe they lived long enough to see it.”
Ciesla said she was also encouraged by those who showed up in support at the council meeting. It was not so much the LGBT audience that touched her but the “parents of children who are exploring their sexuality or who say they don’t know what their kid is yet.”
“It is different,” she said, “than it used to be.”
An understatement, to be sure. Which is why I have no doubt there will be those who, not that long ago refused to give us their names or faces, will proudly show up at this parade … no longer concerned about being quoted or photographed.
Adams says he’s heard from more than a dozen transplanted Aurorans from all over the country — Florida, California, Kansas, Arizona — who left this city because they never felt as if they fit in.
All of them, he told me, indicate they plan to return to Aurora for this parade.
“They feel like they can finally come home.”
