"I'm just going out to show my pride, be happy and stand up for what I believe in."

Robert Damron, 48, sat in a Shoney's on Huntington's West End talking about Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh's upcoming execution.On his vacation to Oklahoma City last year, he visited the memorial to McVeigh's victims."I was almost in tears," he said.Damron ignored his dinner from the seafood buffet for a while and kept talking.

"The problem these days is the break up of families," he said. Dan Faber, his spouse of 17 years, sat across the table and listened. For a while. The two didn’t have all night to talk. The just had time to catch a quick bite to eat before they drove back down the street to watch the West
Virginia Pride Man of the Year competition at The Pyramid nightclub in Huntington.

Damron and Faber were rounding out, as middle aged men tend to do. Damron’s hair was thinning but still brown. Both wore beards and glasses. Neither wore leather chaps, talked with a lisp
or swung their ass as they walked.“We’re a gay couple,” Damron said.

Damron and Faber said things are getting a little better for non-heterosexuals in West Virginia.
"People are starting to realize that just because we're gay we aren't going to jump them like hyper-thyroid apes," Faber said.

But things are from easy for gay people in West Virginia. And as they get older, Damron and Faber say they are becoming more politically active.“When I turned 40 it was like flipping a switch,” Faber said. “You just get tired of crap.”

“I was the ‘faggot’ of Williamstown.”

By 9:30 p.m., Damron and Faber were back at The Pyramid. Most everything was painted black, including most of the exposed ductwork.The two took a table closed to the stage, a low, black affair fronted by block glass glowing a gentle electric blue.In a pink-painted hallway hidden backstage, the pageant contestants were getting ready for the final three stages of the pageant. They were gearing up to strut their stuff, show their talents, and talk about what "pride" means to them.
They had been interviewed earlier in the night, answering questions like "If you had 10 minutes in a room with Dr. Laura, what would you say to her?" and “How has your family handled you’re coming out?”

Damron said he had been a judge for the preliminary part of the pageant for three years. Though he wasn’t acting in an official capacity this year, he was helping out. “I’m the head bitch in charge,” he said.

In the dressing room, 19-year-old Josh Lell sat at a vanity and looked at himself in the mirror. Lanky, dark-haired, he smoked. He was nervous.Things might be improving for gays in West Virginia. But Lell said things were hard for him growing up in Wood County.

"I was the 'faggot' of Williamstown," he said. He said his family was so anti-gay that he left town and moved to Parkersburg on his own.

Lell wore a beige linen suit with two rainbow pins, like military campaign ribbons, on his lapels. "I'm not down here to win," he said. "I'm just here to show my pride."

Todd, a big, slightly effeminate man with glasses smoothed Lell's hair down with some gel and gave him a little hug. He lip-synched love songs to Lell in the mirror to try to make him less nervous.

Each of the other eight contestants in the pageant had already won a preliminary pageant in a gay club in one of West Virginia's cities. Lell hadn't been through the preliminary round, he just anted up $100 and entered the big one.

“My mom made it.”

The pageant -- and The Pyramid itself -- are part of the parallel gay universe. Rejected, beaten and shot at in a world dominated by straight men, gay men and women long ago created their own world.Across the nation people who love people of their own sex put together gay bars, gay newspapers, gay resorts and even gay rodeos. Some people live there full-time, some part-time. Others are just tourists.

In The Pyramid, every type was represented.Middle-aged men in glasses and polo shirts and women that looked like they had been hippies 40 years ago. Macho, cut men in chain mail shirts and leather pants mixed with boyish, lithe guys, who swished when they walked and wore sequins.
Many were gay, some were straight, some were neither.

They all came to see the show. And backstage, in a room at the end of the pink hallway, 37-year-old Charleston resident Billy LaCourse was getting ready for his part of the show.Wearing only a rainbow g-string and lei, he rubbed his skin with carrot oil. It shines better, lasts longer and covers more than baby oil, he said.

LaCourse would go on first. He fidgeted and bounced on his toes.David, 27, was putting on a rainbow, '70s-style pimp outfit. He was all done up, complete with a wide-brimmed, feathered hat and cane."My mom made it for me," he said of the outfit.LaCourse took a shot of Jaigermeister. David downed some bourbon.

“I stand here with nothing but pride.”Out in the club, the audience sipped beers, strobe lights flashed and dance music throbbed. Drag queen Amanda Love took the stage in a revealing dress
and a pile of red curls and started introducing the contestants.

One by one, they broke out onto the stage in front of the men and women sitting in the dark bar, cheering.

Lell strutted out a little meekly in his linen suit. "I stand before you with nothing but pride," he managed to get out before feedback cut off his speech on what pride meant to him.

Other contestants followed with short speeches about unity, mutual support and acceptance.
In between acts, drag queens lip-synched pop hits. Damron and Faber were at the front of the crowd that gathered around the stage, giving dollar bills to the performers.

In the talent contest the contestants used stage sets, lip-synching, clarinets and dance moves to impress the panel of judges.Lell danced to a Ricky Martin hit. Amanda Love held court. The audience screamed for more.

At 3 a.m., all the contestants lined up in their swimsuits and grinned as the winners were announced, starting with fourth runner-up.

Lell's face brightened each time his name wasn't called. He started bouncing a little on his toes. Then it happened. The winner was David.Lell's face fell for a minute. And then he joined the audience's applause and cheers.

Winning wasn't the point, Lell had said earlier: "I'm just going out to show
my pride, be happy and stand up for what I believe in."