No cops at Mardi Gras isn’t a moral triumph, it’s fuzzy-headed victimhood

So, cops won’t march at Mardi Gras. The festival’s board instructed NSW Police not to participate in the parade after a gay officer was charged with the murder of his ex-boyfriend and the ex’s partner. Now there is talk of them marching but not in uniform. Is this a brave moral triumph, or a fuzzy-headed capitulation to a narrative of division and victimhood?

Police have marched at Mardi Gras for more than a quarter of a century. Credit: AP

The apparent killing of these two beloved young men is sickening. The history of police aggression towards LGBTQ+ Australians is a moral catastrophe. It’s understandable that emotions are raw. But uniformed police have marched in the Mardi Gras parade for more than a quarter of a century. NSW Police formally apologised to the LGBTQ+ community in 2016. The murder suspect wasn’t acting in his capacity as a cop. NSW Police charged him, as they should any suspect, in any situation of domestic violence, gay or straight. It was the commander of the Homicide Squad, Detective Superintendent Daniel Doherty, who laid out the allegations in an explosive press conference.

If gay pride is to mean anything in 2024, it must mean pride in diversity, in openness, in inclusiveness. Pride in dismantling stereotypes, not in indulging them. Pride in resilience, not fragility. In magnanimity, not pettiness.

When uniformed police began marching in the Mardi Gras parade in 1998, it was a watershed moment. It represented the maturation of “gay rights” from a rebellious fringe movement to a mainstream celebration. It was a triumph of the old-fashioned universalism of the civil rights pioneers – the aspiration that all people should be treated equally, regardless of colour, sex, creed or, in this case, uniform.

Today, by contrast, we’re encouraged to amplify tribal differences and maintain a scrupulous scorecard of oppression.

I am a man, married to a man, with kids and a mortgage. Barely a week goes by that I don’t hear from a gay fan, often of an older generation, thanking me for “the work I do” in representing gay people. I don’t feel as if I’m doing any work. I’m the beneficiary of other’s work. I’m just living my life in public. Their gratitude is not because I fly a flag of victimhood, of fear and resentment. Their gratitude is for the normality of my life. They’re grateful for how boring I am.

That is the triumph of the gay rights movement. It made rational demands. It appealed to everyone’s sense of a fair go. It was inclusive. It didn’t hunker into a permanent antagonistic crouch. It was big-hearted enough to forgive. The last thing we need is to start branding certain groups as goodies or baddies based on whether some alleged malefactor belonged to one or another team.

If you live in a big city in a rich Western country, every company has a diversity and inclusion policy that proactively celebrates my community. Nearly every corporation puts rainbow flags on their ads, press releases and social media accounts. Gay TV shows are everywhere: Ru Paul, the L-Word, Orange is the New Black, Euphoria, Grace and Frankie, Sex Education, Queer Eye, Crashing, Looking, Glee, Modern Family, Riverdale. Everyone went gaga for Heartstopper. Schitt’s Creek was one of the most celebrated shows of the decade: created by, and starring, a gay man who plays a gay man. Even Star Trek: Discovery has a gay space couple.

Does that mean there’s no homophobia? No. But it does mean that homophobia fits within the spectrum of awful, boring, everyday humdrum bigotry faced by Hindus and feminists and people with autism and anybody else who lives life as a messy human being. What’s gained by fetishising victimhood? I want a Mardi Gras that celebrates our power, not our powerlessness.

It’s understandable for LGBTQ+ Australians to feel tender right now. That’s precisely why this is an opportunity for courage, not spite. My heart goes out to every LGBTQ+ person whose weekend will be tarnished by the recent tragedy ... including those who can’t fully participate through no fault of their own.

Josh Szeps is a broadcaster and the host of Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps.