Sunday, June 29, 2008

You can't rain on this parade

It's the last Sunday in June, which in New York City means Gay Pride Sunday. (In other cities ilke Berlin and Paris the "Christopher Street Parades" tend to be on the anniversary of the Stonewall Riot on 27 June 1969.) And just as on Saint Patrick's Day everyone's Irish for a day, on the last Sunday in June everyone in New York is gay for a day. Well, maybe not everyone. But it is a grand and moving thing to walk down Fifth Avenue (even if you're carrying a banner for a church, how uncool is that!) with thousands of beautiful and/or radiant people all about (even if everyone is intermittently drenched by rain!). I defy anyone to attend a whole parade - not just the clichéd bits on your nightly news, but the legions of ordinary looking people from all walks of life - and hold on to their narrow stereotypes.