Pride has long been as much a show as a message. If there are things on offer that you find enjoyable, go ahead and have some fun; if not, then don’t. I don’t care for parades, so I tend to avoid them… and there are LOTS of parades to avoid in Portland in June! But I enjoy going down to the waterfront and talking to people, seeing what is on offer at the various booths, and so on.

6/27/2006 11:54:00 AM

Toronto 2006…. or AnyTown, Universe.

Gide said…

It is worthy of mention in passing that gaypride is also one hell of a good party:) Which is reason enough to justify almost anything.

Sam is correct… gaypride Is both a show and a message… and both show and message are for the choir, and the congregation, as well as for the nonbelievers. I doubt there is a faggot among us who has not at least read the roots of “Pride” in [2] Stonewall , nor do I pretend to know the extent of the minds and hearts of the participants of Stonewall in the spontaneity of a reaction to systematic and life-long oppression.

An elementary posit in Sociology 101 (which i never took) is that a vociferous fringe element expands the parameters of acceptable behavior. Thru blood, sweat, and tears, the parameters of GLBT’s (i know, it sounds like a delightful sandwich) “behavior” has gained considerable acceptance since the days of Stonewall. That “behavior”, however, is one of sexual and romantic love…. If homosexuality were a matter of caritas, I doubt we would be having this discussion.

I admire assless-chaps as much as the next faggot (with a modicum of aesthetics), but (pun intended), if the next battle is in the courts, driven largely now by a wet finger (lub it) reading the winds of the political climate, might the gaypride exposition serve to further entrench the already alienated, and possibly, just possibly, narrow the hard-won expansion of the minds that have come to accept the concept of equality?

6/30/2006 08:52:00 PM