I remember the day. It was the culmination of "Pride Week" and I was on an emotional and spiritual high. Thousands of brothers and sisters turned out for the celebration - people of varied shape, size, age, ethnicity and social-economic status.

I was leaving this event to fulfill other plans I had made for this summer day when I overheard a comment made by two guys also on their way to another engagement. What I heard went something very close to the following. "Well," one said to the other. "be proud today 'cause the next one won't be here for another year."

The comment caused me to think and ask myself what type of pride were these men talking about? Actually I knew that 'pride' too well. It is the kind of pride that causes you be ashamed of who you are, to lose ones true self and values in an image of what others say it means to be gay.

I took the comment shared between those two guys to mean "eat, drink, and be merry [today] for tomorrow we die". As soon as tomorrow comes, or as soon as we leave this safe place among others like ourselves, we must hide for that's the way things are and there is nothing we can do about it. At least there is nothing that we really want to, or are willing to do about it.

One year in college, a gay male friend who was somewhat feminine in manner came out publicly through a letter to the newspaper. His letter was in response to irrational comments about homosexuality that a writer inserted at the end of an article. The subject was excessive public display of affection among opposite sex couples, save for the last paragraph.

I remember being ashamed of my friend, and of myself. My friend and I previously had spent long hours talking about the goodness of physical and romantic attraction and love between members of the same gender. We shared long talks about how wrong it was for others to judge us as they did - diminishing us to sex acts when we were so much more than sexual maniacs. Yet, when it all came down, I did not really believe my own words.

Actions do speak louder than words - even as it relates to gay pride. There are some people who complain that verbally coming out to others is not important. Perhaps they are right. While there is a benefit to audibly affirming who we are, words cannot take the place of action. Perhaps I might have been able to act by visiting a gay community center where I might have received counseling and peer support. Maybe such a place might have offered alternative social venues different from bars and sex-establishments. The goal of such places not being just to have gays feel comfortable in gay town - but to have gays know inner comfort when they are visible in the larger society.

I believe that by beholding, we become changed. This is true in child development where they may see love or dysfunction and grow up to repeat whatever it is that they experienced. We are quick to want to dispense with this idea when dealing with gay culture and the adolescent level of development we often are when we 'come out'. We copy what we see around us.

To many people, a life of pride means "eating, drinking and being merry" at night, at gay events, in places we frequent, or in sexual situations while returning to the closet as soon as we leave or as soon as the experience is over.

For instance, the romantic in us says that we want affection and we love to give it, but we 'live' afraid to hold our lover's hand as we walk a public beach, or window shop as heterosexual couples do. "Straight-acting", we definitely aren't.

Is it not a rare and suspicious case for a heterosexual woman to be ashamed of her spouse in public? What young man would be afraid to hold the hand of his girlfriend in a public place? If anything, they may even hug and kiss for the entire world to see.

Our actions show that we are not proud of our affections. We show that in our minds, same-sex love and affection is 'less-than' the love and affection opposite-sex couples express. We show that we are dirtier, weaker, than they are, and are not worthy of lives in which we openly love a person of our own gender as a lover, a wife, a husband.

There are countries where by law, one can be put to death by authorities or by mobs, just for being gay let alone showing lover-like affection and association with a same-sex partner. We who live in more friendly countries have it made, and what have we done?

There are some bright lights here and there, in some of our youth who come out and make a difference as the every-day sort of people they are. Yet for the most part, we sit and wait for fictitious characters in print and visual media to do what we refuse to do in real life. We refuse to live proudly as ourselves not as clones and caricatures of what someone else says it means to be gay. We've missed the boat.

Perhaps we have come full-circle. Could it be that act gay now means to live in fear, shame and closets? Straight people don't live like this. They don't act fearful or ashamed of who they are. Maybe there are so many gays who are ashamed, fearful, and live multiple secret-lives, that there no longer is (if it ever existed) real, true 'gay pride'.

It seems that everywhere I turn, we gays are strung-out on drugs, phoning legislators, and phoning for sex - phone-sex. We blame all of our physical and mental health problems on "anti-gay" heterosexuals. Yes, they play their part, but so do we. In many places, community-based (gay town) self-help and self-identity counseling as well as non-sexual social groups are all but extinct.

The battle we must fight is not so much against hostile heterosexuals, but first against internalized shame, and fear that is leading to very unhealthy lifestyles. Gay and gay-friendly therapists, clergy, educators, and others - we need you.

It is time that the community center be moved from the alcohol bar, and dance club to the spaces where gays can experience counseling, peer support and where alternative social opportunities are available.

We may never change the fear and disgust some have of gays. However, as a community, we can work to stop fear, shame, and the dehumaniziation of our affection and ourselves.

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