We Belong Cape May County held a Pride rally and march June 1 on the Ocean City Boardwalk followed by a festival with supportive community organizations at the Civic Center. It was the second annual rally and march We Belong sponsored for the LGBTQIA+ community.
There is a need for this, because visibility matters. After what seems like decades of slow but grudging progress for gay rights in the United States, there has been a backlash against LGBTQIA+ individuals with particular vitriol reserved for transgender members of the community.
A Pride rally in a local community such as Ocean City sends a message, according to Michael Hartman, the featured speaker at the event.
Hartman is a proud 1998 graduate of Ocean City High School and a graduate of West Chester University. He reached the Eagle Scout rank and is founder and artistic director of the Ocean City Theatre Company, which has had thousands of youngsters pass through its education and children’s theater programs over the past 17 years.
Ocean City remains a conservative town, but he believes it has changed since his high school years when bullying incidents made him feel alone as he struggled with his own identity. It has become far more welcoming to the LGBTQIA+ community.
When he married his husband six years ago, Ocean City lit up the Ninth Street causeway in rainbow colors to honor their union.
But visibility, the kind presented by We Belong’s march and rally, remains important.
Hartman explained that after the rally with some 200 people, when they went to march down the boardwalk he had some trepidations. What if people made derogatory comments or gave marchers dirty looks?
“I was a little nervous going down the boardwalk. I had my theater company kids there, there were a lot of young people and families there, and you go into protective mode,” he said.
Instead, the marchers were greeted with cheers and support.
That sends a message. And that message doesn’t just go to those who are out and proud and comfortable in their skins.
“When you’re visible, you don’t know who is going to see you who might need that moment,” Hartman said.
It could be someone who hasn’t come out and is struggling with the decision, or parents whose child has come out and they are unsure how to deal with it.
The really powerful part of visibility, he said, is that others see members of the LGBTQIA+ community in public showing their pride. The marchers don’t know who saw them and who might need that connection, but it was on display in their hometown.
Hartman said the rally and march showed others they are not alone, that people are out there fighting for them, that there is a whole tribe ready to lift them up.
During his speech, he pointed out there are school boards and communities that remain obsessed with demonizing the LGBTQIA+ community while using false narratives to push an agenda built on division and hate.
Hartman was being diplomatic, speaking about things happening all across the country, fitting for someone who is chief of staff to a Pennsylvania state senator, but Ocean City and the towns and cities that send their students to be educated here got a taste of that demonization.
It came during a debate that took place over more than a year concerning the district approving new state health and physical education standards. Some of those opposed to the standards, specifically parts related to sex education and any discussion of the LGBTQIA+ community, twisted the law to make it seem obscene. Others said they were just trying to protect children from aspects they didn’t believe were age-appropriate.
The problem with that “protection” is that trying to keep students from learning anything about the LGBTQIA+ community by blocking access in schools to information amounts to erasure.
Erasure serves only to make vulnerable students feel more isolated. (Fortunately, the board approved the standards.)
And fortunately, We Belong Cape May County was formed with the intent right in its name, to show the LGBTQIA+ community belonged right alongside everyone else.
There is another fitting aspect about the march being in Ocean City, which lauds its foundation as a Christian resort and its enduring attraction as a family resort.
Hartman pointed out that Christians are taught to love thy neighbor and he reminded everyone that tolerance, acceptance and love are family values.
Given that this is a resort whose livelihood is dependent on attracting people to its shores, that works for its future as well.
It’s important to make everyone feel welcome and accepted. If not, Hartman noted, why would people visit here? Why would families want to move here to raise their children? And why would the young people who live here want to return here and raise their own families here?
Thank you, We Belong, for being visible.
David Nahan is editor and publisher of the Ocean City Sentinel, Upper Township Sentinel and The Sentinel of Somers Point, Linwood and Northfield.