Happy Pride!

Name the origin of the pink triangle as a symbol for the gay community....

It's Pride Week in many cities all over the country. Here in Albuquerque, there was an inter-faith service last weekend to begin the week. Festivities culminate Saturday with a parade that leads to a festival at the state fairgrounds.

A local exhibit worth noting is showcased at the New Mexcio Holocaust and Intolerance Museum. It is a touring exhibit of Nazi Perscution of Homosexuals, 1933-1945.

"An estimated 1.2 million men were homosexuals in Germany in 1928. Between 1933-1945, an estimated 100,000 men were arrested as homosexuals, and of these, some 50,000 officially defined homosexuals were sentenced. Most of these men spent time in regular prisons, and an estimated 5,000 to 15,000 of the total sentenced were incarcerated in concentration camps," according to a pamphlet published by the United States Holocaust Museum. This does not include women who were also arrested, imprisoned and executed because of sexuality.

After the Holocaust, in 1956, West Germany disqualified recipients of compensation if their internment in a concentration camp had been based upon homosexuality. Homosexuality remained a crime in Germany until 1969; persons incarcerated in the camps because of their sexuality were not publicly commemorated until the mid 1980s. (source: Alibi, June 7-13, 2007)

The pink triangle was the patch LGBT persons were forced to wear during the Holocaust and in concentration camps to identify them as homosexuals. Today the pink triangle serves as a tragic and symbolic reminder of the horrific treatment that many in our community still experience, here in the United States and throughout the world.