Worldwide Pride(!) And Worldwide Pride(?)

World Gay and Lesbian Pride weekend has just wrapped up and the results are conclusive. Gay people throw a pretty sweet party.

In major cities around the globe, cable news broadcast ample video of dudes dressed like hideously ugly women, and girls that resemble any guy I've ever met that would beat me silly if I so much looked them in the eye.

It was awesome.

It wasn't too long ago when Gay Pride seemed to be exclusively celebrated in San Francisco, with a mile long parade on Castro Street (these days referred to as "lunch break") that was filled with drag queens in elaborate costumes, led by parade Grand Marshall's the Cowboy and Construction Worker from The Village People.

Ahhh, the good old days.

Gay Pride has since gone global. This year, from San Francisco to Paris, millions of gays, lesbians and closeted heterosexuals painted the sky pastel and celebrated their sexual orientation.

Yay.

It was a worldwide call to action. The revelers marched, danced, primped and chanted with unified urgency.

We're here, we're queer, and, uh, we're still here. Hello? I said we're still here!!! OMG! Are you listening to us?! Oh, whatever!!!

We hear you loud and clear. And I, for one, have heard enough.

I've succumb to gay hating fatigue and I'm now compelled to fight back.

Huh, you query? Gay hating fatigue?

Yes.

It appears to me that the steady increase of in-your-face pride throughout the years may be the result of the gay population having to ever aggressively fight back at the well oiled - and well funded - machine of evangelical conservatives.

Honestly, I don't take sides here. At least on the issue of same-sex marriage. In an earlier post (California Is So Gay!) I bandied about the idea that our secular nation nixay marriage all together, in favor of civil unions for all human citizens. The newly unified couple would then have an option to have their civil union be blessed as a marriage in the church of their choosing.

This is why the Catholic Church that I worship calls marriage a sacrament. I should know, I've done it three times. The church is a little pissed about the last two, so consider my Catholic guilt-o-meter fueled into perpetuity.

The religious righteous warns of catastrophic, apocalyptic consequences if we, as a nation, condone the same-sex lifestyle by recognizing civil unions. With that, it's worth noting that the earth did not open and swallow Pride revelers in New York, San Francisco, Minneapolis, or any other highly gay populated cities during Pride festivities.

Depending on which political tightrope you tether, you believe (or are led to believe) that between two and ten percent of the human race are homosexual. For me, the actual number is irrelevant.

What matters to me is a level playing field where same-sex unions continue to exist, as they always have, however with the same access to public and private benefits that heterosexual unions receive.

I've heard complaints from detractors that suggest the gay community has an ultimate agenda of establishing themselves as a protected "minority" group.

Hogwash.

I don't know why some people are gay, and I also don't know why others are straight. We are just one or the other, I suppose.

We just are.

Let's take pride in that.