Gay Pride parades are a bit strange, not because they exist, but because they seem to be somewhat counterproductive. They seem to celebrate bizarre behavior that has little or nothing to do with gay pride.
My wife and I were sailing on a friend's boat during the local Christmas parade, and everyone else of the 15 or so people on the boat was a homosexual. They were all just plain normal. They were entrepeneurs, academics, business managers, IT/graphics people, same as about any crowd in San Diego by the harbor. People were dressed in the usual khaki/athletic/hiking wear hybrid that's commonplace here on a cold evening outside.
Then they started talking about this year's Pride Parade and how it was so great. What struck me as odd, as a bit of an outsider, is that none of them seemed remotely like the image that Pride Parades project.
What's my point? Pride Parades are not very authentic, despite an outward claim of authenticity. They're wacky theater.
I have no problem with wacky theater, Burning Man, performance art, etc. Nude beaches are kinda fun. I find men playing hacky sack in neon g-strings kinda funny; I really don't know why some find it "threatening".
Stepping back, though, one would think that a Pride Parade would make a calm, cool and collected statement about reality. "We are your neighbors, coworkers, supervisors. We are your customers and your vendors. We are human beings, just like you. We are not ashamed. Why should we be?" But it seems like Pride Parades, far from being Martin Luther King style marches for equal treatment and respect, are a celebration of UNreality.
It's a bad mix, really. Have a LGBT wacky fest. Enjoy it. Don't allow guns, smoking, dogs, whatever you want not to allow. But trying to mix a wacky fest with a serious political statement creates cognitive dissonance, which in turn leads to irrational behavior like throwing out someone carrying -- a statement that I read as "armed gays don't get bashed", and one that I'd cheer in wholehearted support.
Clearly, that cognitive dissonance exists in the organizers, though from my experience they are far from admitting it.
