The first successful election of Barak Obama to be the U.S. President in 2008 was marred by many in the LGBT community for the fact that it was also the day that Prop 8 was passed in California once again making same-sex marriages illegal again. It was a bitter blow but out of adversity some really good things started to grow to show that we were not totally disillusioned with society and that we would indeed live to fight another day.
One such thing was the First Comes Love Project that was started in March 2009 by the photographer and artist B. Proud. What she set out to do was to provide a glimpse into the “everyday” lives of LGBTQ couples who have been in their relationships for 10, 20, 30, 40 and even 50 years! The project emphasized that gay relationships are in many ways no different than heterosexual ones, yet each is unique, in and of itself. The people represented in this project live “ordinary” lives made extraordinary by their endurance of the attitudes and policies that society directs against them, all the while facing the everyday struggles faced by any enduring relationship.
It took form of traveling exhibition of the photographs but more importantly as in the shape of a beautiful hardback book of images of all these couple celebrating their love for each other.
This summer B.Proud stopped in P.Town to launch the book bringing along Edie Windsor who is not just featured , but who also wrote the forward. We persuaded her to spend a morning on the beach with Provincetown Community Television so we could learn more about First Comes Love.
The book is available from www.firstcomeslove.org.
