6.26.00
Loud and Proud

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Dr. James Boice, R.I.P.

6.22.00
Hate (Crime) Cannot Wish Thee Worse

6.20.00
Murder in California

6.20.00
Collective Oblivion

6.19.00
Stand There and Enjoy It

6.19.00
Justice Should Be Color-Blind

6.16.00
Zero Sense

6.16.00
Cost of Government Day

6.16.00
Campaign 2000: A Deadlock at Halftime

6.14.00
First District Democracy

6.13.00
Conservative Writer Seduced by Gays

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Al Gore, Graphic Artist

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Dog-Dissing at The Weekly Standard

6.09.00
Put Klein in the Star Chamber

6.09.00
China's Philosophy of Oppression

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They're Back!

6/26/00 6:55 p.m.
Loud and Proud
An afternoon at the Gay Pride Parade.

By Cristopher Rapp, NR associate editor---------------crisrapp@mindspring.com

ne surprising aspect of Sunday's Gay Pride Parade in New York City was that it took almost forty-five minutes to spot my first FREE MUMIA! banner. As Rob Long has noted in NR, no left-leaning gathering is complete until someone calls for the immediate release of Mumia Abu-Jamal, the world's most famous cop-killer. So when so much time went by without seeing his name I started to worry. But there he was — or his mimeographed image, anyway — right between "DR. LAURA and PARAMOUNT — PROFITS OF DOOM" (sic), and the dance-club float on which everyone was dressed up like characters from Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, with a guy dressed like Felicity Shagwell singing a song by Madonna.

Aside from the occasional swipe at Laura Schlessinger and the pro-Hillary stickers that were passed out in the crowd, the parade was more street party than political rally. This was true even from my vantage point on the corner of 50th and Fifth, just across the street from St. Patrick's Cathedral. Not so long ago, St. Pat's was, in the minds of more than a few gay activists, the local equivalent of the Death Star from Star Wars, and it was the site of some nasty protests; on Sunday, as I watched with my friend Beckie and her brother Ryan, a USC student in town for the weekend, nobody seemed to notice the place.

Then again, the marchers did their best to catch the eye. There was the guy, part of a Brazilian gay organization, who wore an enormous flowered headdress, his white gown setting off his black goatee nicely. There were the members of the local gay Star Trek fan club, and tall black men in spandex dresses, blowing kisses to the crowd like so many RuPauls. Some tough-looking ladies brandished swords as The Marching Xenas. Guys on their way to becoming gals displayed their new chests; the Hartford Harlettes, made up of middle-aged, potbellied men in cheerleader outfits, waved their pompoms. There were gay cops, gay firefighters, gay veterans, even gay square-dancers. A dour bunch calling themselves "Lesbians for Socialism" distributed copies of The Worker's World. (Ryan: "That, like, is the only thing here I disagree with.")

There were religious groups too — representatives of every denomination (one guy's sign declared that he was an "unrepentant Christian," which seemed somewhat contradictory, but never mind) and a Gospel choir performing a beautiful rendition of "Oh Happy Day." A pagan group sat in the back of a psychedelic pickup truck (slogan: COMING OUT OF THE BROOM CLOSET), while one woman, presumably their leader, banged a gong.

Various nightclubs sponsored floats that were basically rolling dance parties. Usually the music was techno, but one float, sponsored by Altoids breath mints, played, quite appropriately, "It's Raining Men." If this was societal decay, at least it had a good beat. On the back of huge trucks, shirtless buff guys held their own raves, dancing around in short-shorts, some examples of which could best be described as "cheeky."

"A lot of gay men have really good bodies," said my pal Beckie, her eyebrows arched. She wasn't kidding. It was as if a personal-trainers' convention had been rerouted through midtown. Half the time, I didn't know whether to avert my eyes or ask advice on how to build my lats.

Weird juxtapositions were always just around the corner: No sooner had one of these suggestive, semi-nude floats gone by, when one for AIDS services would come along. Sometimes the floats were two-for-one. The float sponsored by the show-business organization Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS had both a banner that read IMAGINE, DEMAND, & WORK FOR A CURE and an ad for something called "Broadway Bares." To be honest, these contradictions were less jarring than they might have been ten years ago, mainstream popular culture having now embraced them wholeheartedly (Seen a copy of Cosmo or Maxim lately?). This was just one reason that, on the whole, the march had an apolitical feel, and that politicians who joined the march — Rudy Giuliani, Hillary Clinton, Sen. Chuck Schumer, a host of local office holders and wannabes — could do so without spending a dime of political capital.

Indeed, you'd be hard pressed to detect any controversy here at all. From where I stood I could see only a handful of protesters. They stood off to the side in a special area, holding a sign that read ALMIGHTY GOD, STOP GAY MARRIAGE, and praying what another placard explained was a "rosary of reparation." But on a day like today this was spitting into the wind. To be sure, their claims to moral seriousness were not enhanced by their third sign, which compared Hillary Clinton to Adolf Hitler. As the floats went by, some of the dancers threw confetti at them.

One of the last groups I saw was made up of the S&M aficionados, representatives of something called the Hellfire Club. These folks wore large, butt-kicking boots (the S part of the equation) and assorted leather-gear (think of the leather guy from the Village People and you're not far off). A few couples led each other around on chain-link leashes, or held signs like SAFE, SANE, CONSENSUAL! One full-figured woman in a black leather mini walked around topless, displaying an unorthodox and painful-looking use for a pair of oversized wooden clothespins. As for the other side of her, her bare back had several red slashes on it; at one point, she stood in place and a leatherman added a couple more with few expert, not-too-hard-but-not-too-soft flicks of a bullwhip. She was outdone in the cringe-inducing department only by a pale fellow — not much older than 20 — who cavorted in a jock strap with several large clothespins clamped down on The Mother of All Sensitive Places.

Kind soul that I am, I prayed that the First Lady's entourage would be directly behind this bunch ("Clothespin, Mrs. Clinton?"). But alas, it was not to be. Actually, I didn't see the First Lady, or for that matter the mayor, at all. As I learned later, Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani both joined the parade further along the route, which snaked its way downtown toward the NYU campus before hanging a right and culminating in the far end of Greenwich Village, not far from where the Stonewall riots jumpstarted the gay movement thirty years ago. I was told that at that point the parade turns into an enormous, all-night party ("Jello shots, Mrs. Clinton?") but I took a pass. I was tired and sunburned, and there was still time to make 5:30 Mass.

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