The LA Pride Celebration, taking place June 10-12 this year, will honor BUST’s favorite comedienne/singer/writer/LGBT activist extraordinaire Margaret Cho with the Morris Knight Lifetime Achievement Award. In a recent interview with Out Magazine, this year’s recipient reflects the historical progression of the LGBT movement and her own role in it:
“The [LA Pride] parades were small until 1978, when Harvey Milk died. There was a shift in the participation. The candlelight vigil was an incredible moving carpet of people, and even though that wasn’t a pride parade, in the deepest sense, it still was. So when I attend pride parades now as an adult, it really brings me back to my childhood…I witnessed a lot of political change and a lot of death. So many gay men of that generation died of AIDS, and it was a terrible thing to see. It focused me toward being an activist in the community. I’ve grown up always thinking politically, but also about living in a state of joy. People were coping with AIDS through dark humor, so I think that’s how I understood to fight prejudice. It’s why I do what I do.”
And, of course, nothing Margaret Cho does can be complete without her trademark humor:
“If you, Kathy [Griffin], and Lance [Bass] were trapped on an island together, who would get eaten first?
I’m sure Lance would not survive. He’s so tender and delicious looking. I would eat most of him. Kathy is much smaller than me. I could put away a lot of Lance.”
Read the full interview here.
