The worst of the seven deadly sins? Pride

Priscilla addressed with perceptive sensitivity the hangover of homophobia that persisted in Australian society through the dark years following the HIV/AIDS epidemic, writes Steve Waterson.

Driving through the bone-dry country surrounding the metropolis of Broken Hill to a high-society wedding, thoughts turn inevitably to the 3rd century Christian hermits and ascetics in the Roman province of Egypt.

They were known as the Desert Fathers, named for their pathway to spiritual perfection, which involved selling all their possessions, donating the proceeds to the poor and retiring to the deep desert to live in contemplative solitude.

There, despite their presumed distance from temptation, these fun-loving characters refined the concept of the seven deadly sins. Since discovering the list in my schooldays, I’ve had a go at one or two of them, sometimes in lusty, slothful combination; and while my own hierarchy of sins differs slightly from the desert dwellers’, I share their belief that the worst of them is pride.

The hermits denounced pride as the demonic, anti-God offence that leads to all the other capital sins. I’m not sure I’d go quite that far, but its near ubiquity is becoming rather irritating. Is there any quality these days, no matter how accidental, gratuitous or obnoxious, that isn’t flaunted by its bearer?

Of course when the modern pride movement was born 40-odd years ago, it was an essential defence mechanism for gay men and women, a defiant, pre-emptive strike against the anticipated insults and attacks launched on those who departed from hidebound societal norms. Few of my older gay mates of the Stonewall generation remember those days with much affection, other than for the sense of solidarity and the friendships they inspired.

Passing seamlessly and, I hope, with fa-a-a-bulous elegance from desert fathers to queens, back in Broken Hill a treasured fragment of that surge of gay pride still resonates at the Palace Hotel, which sparkles more than the millions of tonnes of galena the town is built upon, and whose striking murals featured in the 1994 film The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.

Between its eruptions of outrageously scatological comedy, Priscilla addressed with perceptive sensitivity the hangover of homophobia that persisted in Australian society through the dark years following the HIV/AIDS epidemic; younger readers might be surprised to learn that the film was released three years before homosexuality was grudgingly decriminalised in Tasmania.

A similarly justifiable use of the adjective attaches to those of Aboriginal descent, who now declare themselves proud members of their ancestral nations, an attribute it might have been tempting to play down or hide in less enlightened times.

But for the rest of us, who have no urgent battle for equality to fight, it’s often struck me as odd to take pride in something you haven’t earned or achieved.

I suppose I could celebrate the city of my birth by declaring I’m a “proud Liverpudlian” – two words that aren’t seen together very often, I know – but that seems no more logical a boast than to say I’m a proud biped. Bisexual, though, would probably still need a “proud”. Not that I am, and not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Obviously it’s not for me to decide whether or when you should relinquish the “proud” before whatever you are, do or think; but I do urge caution before adopting it. At the outer edge of acceptability, I have a friend who with commendable bravery describes herself as a “proud Collingwood supporter”. I think she’s proud because she still has most of her own teeth.

Meanwhile, I pray the need for any kind of defensive pride is fading, and look forward to a day when it disappears altogether, or when I do something to feel proud about, which seems a little further down the road.

Until then, I am pleased to remain, as we used to say, your humble servant.