Non-violent resistance has been harnessed by the LGBT community through the gay pride marches.

I don’t know the details of the history of the gay pride marches, but cases of violence during the gay pride marches (by people marching) are extremely low – compare the number of people worldwide who have marched and how many of those who marched were violent. There was violence in the Stonewall Inn riots – but even there it was the New York City Police who were apologising 50 years later:

“The actions taken by the N.Y.P.D. were wrong, plain and simple,” he continued. “The actions and the laws were discriminatory and oppressive, and for that, I apologize.”

– New York City’s police commissioner, 2019, advocate.com

For what is over half a century, gay pride marches have continued and removed all violent aspects of their marches. The only examples I find for violence by the marchers themselves is where some marchers were arrested in Russian in 2006 in fighting with anti-gay protesters who were against the march. I’m always sceptical of exact numbers as I’ve witnessed the Chinese whispers of an event, through police, through government, through media – rarely are the figures accurate. Almost always it is the Police or anti-gay protesters who are arrested for violence – for example in Russian in 2007 (marchers were arrested but there is no mention of them being violent), Serbia in 2010 and Montenegro in 2013.

This is quite phenomenal. I would say that they are the closest living embodiment of what Jesus, Tolstoy, Gandhi and Martin Luther King had in mind for their non-violent resistance. However Gandhi and Martin Luther King never managed to eradicate the violence in their movements. It distressed them terribly that people who followed them were still violent – but they could never find a way of communicating to them. A small proportion of any large community, especially one that has been oppressed will want to be violent. Beyond this at any kind of protest, even if none of the movement protesting are violent, the concept of a protest attracts those who can be violent whilst pretending to be part of the protest. Beyond this Police and media in any European country or US state are looking for violence. Its somewhere between they expect it and they encourage it through a mix of thoughtlessness and potentially malicious intent.

Gay pride marches are some of the most successful acts of non-violent protest ever carried out. However I think that they go beyond non-violence. They don’t even talk in terms of non-violence or protest. They talk in terms of pride. Weirdly that’s one of those deadly sins, and clearly there is a side to this word that is very non-deadly.

“… [The] first thought was ‘Gay Power,’” Schoonmaker told The Allusionist podcast in 2015. “I didn’t like that, so [I] proposed ‘gay pride.’ There’s very little chance for people in the world to have power. People did not have power then; even now, we only have some. But anyone can have pride in themselves, and that would make them happier as people, and produce the movement likely to produce change.”

– Why Is It Called Pride?

Watching how that the pride march has grown and how I view it, I would capture it in terms of Desmond Tutu’s and the Dalai Lama’s concept of Joy. The gay pride marches are a celebration of joy. Everyone is welcome (with the current exception of Police in the New York Gay Pride March). It’s protest through dance, love, fabulousness and celebrating what is good.

‘Gay is good,’
‘Say it loud; I’m gay and I’m proud.’

I do wonder if violent people just don’t bother going to gay pride marches, or if they go along but don’t feel the need to be violent during the march. We have to celebrate and wonder and study how they managed to achieve this. Its a modern miracle of social change. The proportion of people who now accept LGBT people and relationships compared to the half century ago is staggering.

All done in tight leather trousers and too much makeup.