The Garden Party
Hoch-kirch elegantes leut’

by Ruby Lips
Prideweek 2002
The annual LGBT Community Center’s Garden Party is the High-Church event of the New York queer charity season. Held in a playground transformed by tent pavilions purveying tres chic restaurant nibbles, it is the pinnacle of queer social and financial success to attend. Queer peasants stood all along the outside of the fence looking in, perspiring and aspiring, listening to the famed pop musical groups performing for the glitteratti within. There is a tiered entry to this soirée, ranging from an astronomically priced general admission to coveted founder’s tickets for those whose names are chiseled on buildings and wings of centers. If you have to ask what they paid to get in to the purple-wristband pavilion, you don’t own any European panties, my dear. But don’t be a drudge begrudging the beautiful people’s party; it is they who have made the center’s programs possible. The canapés are likely donated in return for a bit of permitted commercial posturing. The money raised allows the likes of me to sail into the center to freely enjoy the entirely remodeled, accessible, air conditioned, interior queer safe space filled with information and events for every imaginable, fully inclusive, inclination.

Yours truly, Miz Ruby, who has to practically sell her ass just to pay the rent, was whisked in to this event by gracious people who find her amusing. Although I have never quite figured out how A-list elegants manage to stand holding a cocktail, plate of food, and fork, all the while exchanging business cards and small talk (I think they have three or four hands, its genetic), I managed to not be miss piggy, at least, as I wolfed down the free nibbles while smiling pleasantly.