Gay In America: Color Lines Across Rainbow Skies

Last month, I marched in the annual NYC Heritage Of Pride March, the largest Gay Pride Parade in the world. I was joined by Xem Van Adams, a young actor, writer, and filmmaker. After the March, we returned to our daily lives, with thoughts of our day of pride still fresh in our heads. Yesterday, Mr. Adams released his four-part documentary, Gay In America: Color Lines Across Rainbow Skies.




In this insightful film, Adams tackles a prickly subject: Even though the flag of the LGBT Pride movement is a rainbow, meant to highlight our unity and the idea that we are all together in harmony, gays and lesbians in America still segregate themselves along racial and ethnic boundaries.



Even as we celebrated our wonderful, multi-hued diversity along Fifth Avenue, the floats, bands, and even the political statements we made, as Xem's interviewees point out, mask a sadder, darker truth. As a community, we as gays and lesbians still remain deeply divided in our associations, partner choices, attitudes toward other gays and lesbians of different ethnicities, and in our responses to homophobia in the society we all live in.



Xem makes the telling observation that before we as LGBTs can overcome the persecution we face in larger society, we must first overcome our own issues of tolerance and understanding. We are still "divided under the rainbow".



In this groundbreaking documentary series, Xem Van Adams and the people who share their stories and thoughts raise new imperatives and provocative issues for the LGBT community to address. Forty years after the Stonewall Rebellion, this film teaches us we've still got a ways to go. Full equality for our LGBT community won't happen until we overcome the inequalities within ourselves. Hats off to Xem Van Adams and company for bringing us a much-needed wake-up call!