Speaking as a gay man who’s most definitely not into public displays of affection/sexuality, I think that Pride parades in all their smutty glory fulfill an important, positive function for the relationship between gays and the surrounding culture. If gay sexuality weren’t paraded down the street every year it would be completely invisible to most Americans; people tend to let their fears grow in the spaces left open by their ignorance. If people dislike gays because of Pride, that’s an improvement over hating and fearing them because their “deviancy” is hidden away among other menances such as the pedophiles, Satanists, et al.
It’s my impression that titillating Pride video clips have become less prominent in the anti-gay media arsenal over the past several years, especially in the gay marriage debate. With familiarity it becomes less and less able to shock and the anti-gay argument has to become more and more vague to sustain its scaryness.
In the long run it’s better to confront the whole body of homophobes with their fears than to hope to coax fence-sitters over to the side of tolerance with polite, inoffensive behavior.
You mean there were Scottish groups celebrating their Scottishness in an Irish parade? That would be weird. Or were there groups playing the Scottish bagpipes celebrating their Irishness? That would be sort of weird, but I have heard that Irish pipers play Scottish bagpipes in public to be heard better.
Because no Irishman in the history of the world has ever been a cop or a fireman
This was the guy I linked to two or three posts back, from the NY parade. Kilts and bagpipes are a general part of Celtic culture, but that looks specifically Scottish to me. I could be wrong.
Of course, there’s also the folks on this page. Fifth pic down is a group carrying a banner that says “Stave Falls Scottish Dancers.” Two picks below that is an Asian woman dressed up like a Vegas dance girl, and what the hell that has to do with Ireland, I can’t even guess. But that’s from a Vancouver parade. Odds are, they don’t have any problem with having gays march.
Neither have any of them ever been gay, apparently.
A women’s parade where they all made cookies and showed off their child-rearing skills would get a warm reception from conservatives, but wouldn’t do a thing for women’s rights.
Besides, straight people do over-the-top public sexually related things all the time…from risque billboards to bikini carwashes.
Don’t forget those over the top parties that straight people have where the woman dresses in white and the man in black and they exchange rings and kiss in church - and then they continually SHOVE their sexuality in everyone’s faces by wearing those rings ALL THE TIME. I mean, it’s just so completely unnecessary…
But that’s just the criticism of Gay Parades - that they are in fact a re-enforcing of stereotypes held by conservatives: (Straight) women bake cookies and raise babies (in your example); gay folk dress in leather chaps and have sweaty simulated threesomes in public.
The implication, to many, of over-the-top public sexuality; gays = degenerate, which is of course the position of many conservatives. Particularly where the parade is about gay rights, and therefore is assumed by those who are not part of that ciommunity to be somewhat representative of gays as a whole.
[Remember that a lot of the same people don’t exactly approve of risque billboards or bikini carwashes).
That being said, there are no doubt many good reasons to hold parades of this sort - for the participants. Many are mentioned above. But I think it is not the case that they actually advance the social position of acceptance of homosexuality in society as a whole - in reality, I think the reverse is the case (of course, that may not be their primary function, and fair enough).
A very agreeable post - ‘better the devil you know’ in a sense I suppose.
My parents knew a fairly miserable gay couple when I was a kid, so I’ve gladly not had a problem considering homosexuality as ‘normal’. But anything explicitly gay in popular culture seems to tend towards the flamboyancy, camp and godawful Kylie remixes side of things. I can imagine this tendency might put young people off ‘coming out’ - if their conclusion is ‘well, I fancy men, but I can’t bear vocal house music and fetish-wear, better stay here in the closet’.
Wouldn’t the agenda benefit from both Pride parades and some less vivacious role models in a sort of pincer movement?
