Millions celebrate LGBTQ pride in New York

@itsonlyrockandroll - nobody's ever stopped the heterosexuals from having a parade if they are marginalised. If they feel the need to stand up against the people who shush and shame them, and celebrate the gradual ending of oppression, then go book a day. Absolutely nobody is stopping them. They will be mocked, mind you, for their ignorance, and for not understanding what Pride is about, but after all they have been through, they can handle a bit of gentle ribbing.

While I fully support an end to discrimination here, the outlandish costumes and angel wings may not be the best tactic to put across the message they want to be treated like everyone else.

Toning it down a bit might be helpful. You do look a bit silly.

There is a difference between this and St Patrick’s Day or Halloween or similar events for me. People dressing up for those events know they look silly but they aren’t trying to achieve anything. The silly costumes switch a lot of people off.

I just think the sight of tens of thousands of regularly dressed people marching for equal rights would be a better tactic. There are important things at stake here.

I used to go on anti-poverty marches and it didn’t cross my mind to go and rent a clown suit for the occasion.

While I accept that I’m a grumpy and miserable sod, I remember a grumpy and miserable gay guy I worked with telling me something similar. His other pet peeves included straight women hanging around gay guys to look cool and feel ‘secure’ and the gay press.

Still waiting a carnival to celebrate pride for romantic attraction between persons of the opposite sex.

Straight Pride, you mean? To stand strong against the history of oppression, hatred, prejudice and violence against heterosexuals, you mean? To remember those who fought to overturn the ban on homosexuality? To speak out in support of those who, even now, are rejected from job and housing applications for being straight, who are not given proper medical attention, who are not allowed to have legal union with their life partners, who are imprisoned, beaten, sexually assaulted, executed, and murdered for being heterosexual?

You would like people to stand up in unashamed solidarity with heterosexuals and celebrate their life and love?

Go for it.

Both. Like heterosexuals.

The religiously inclined don't just preach against homosexuality; they also preach against all lasciviousness in general. And I think that's what a lot of people are seeing in these pride parades. I mean, people stripping down to the bare necessities and gyrating in front of spectators, some of whom are children, just rubs people the wrong way. Gay or straight.

Why should the rest of the world alter its behaviour because some people were raised as prudes?

@Jimizo, -

From an evolutionary perspective, the relatively tiny number of homosexuals necessitates some sort of unique outward signal or display to communicate their sexual preferences to potential partners. If this signal didn't exist or wasn't clear enough, they would be wasting most of their time pursuing incompatible partners. The flamboyance and hyper-sexualization of the gay community is likely an essential characteristic of it, like the peacock's tail. We also see this in the various studies of homosexual behavior which document things like lifetime partners, interactions with strangers, and fidelity. By asking them to tone it down, you're effectively asking them to suppress a unique characteristic that sets them apart from heterosexuals.

I am all for people being free to be gay, but pride parades are just rubbing it in people's faces and they are asking for a backlash. You don't want the pendulum on either side. You want it to stop in the middle.

LGBT folk are still being assaulted, harassed, murdered every day. Do heterosexuals get beaten up for expressing their affections in public? Heterosexual culture is all around us, it is actively promoted as the "norm".

But a parade seems to bring out the worst in some people. The thinly disguised disgust at men who like men, often from people who think nothing of whooping and drooling over 2 women kissing each other.

*I let one case of homosexuality slip through up there. tsk. Sorry about that. Poor heteros can't have a day to themselves without the gays having a look-in.

Are you saying that any and all sex is good? Because we now that leads to degenerate society. The heterosexual population is plagued with various negative consequences for unbridled sexual indulgence.

As long as its between consenting adults, I don't see the problem with it. I mean, what, is it the physical act of male penetration that you see as degenerate or is it the use of sex toys? Is it the men or women that causes you to fret more?

"Most of all its about love." Right, guys who love being penetrated by other guys.

There's more to being LGBT than male penetration. Do you have a problem with heterosexual couples who enjoy anal intercourse?

Do you have a problem with females penetrating females?

And of course, sex doesn't have to involve penetration at all. But I fear that some terrified/disgusted hetero men out there can't focus on anything else but male penetration, when it comes to the idea/concept/existence of gays.

Says more about them than us LGBT folks :-)

The White House says Trump has long advocated LGBTQ equality, noting that he became this year the first Republican president to recognize Pride Month and backed a global campaign to decriminalize homosexuality.

Thank him, first.

Well I guess "I'm ok if you're gay as long as you don't let me see it" is better than "it's not ok that you're gay".

But only nominally.

More like people had no choice but to see this crap on the streets. Far better things to parade.

Like what? Did someone else get elbowed out on the parade schedule?

I'm not sure about Jimizo's opinion, that the camp and extrovert image of LGBT acts as a barrier to further emancipation, but I suspect it does stop more "alpha male" types, i.e., sportsmen in team sports, from coming out.

The whole issue of judging people by appearance is highly problematic. Add cultural differences to the mix and you can have a whole load of misunderstanding. Japanese women in short skirts and hot pants are not "dressed like hookers", an expression I have heard Americans use. Likewise, everyone with a tattoo is not a mobster who should be banned from the onsen.

Nothing to be ashamed of, but also nothing to be proud of. It just is what it is.

I disagree. LGBT people have faced - and still face - discrimination and hatred just for being who they are, and Pride is a visible, joyous celebration that they're still here, they're unbowed, and they're not going anywhere.

"I'm ok if you're gay as long as you don't let me see it"

I'm also OK if you're straight, as long as you don't shove it in my face.

No need to hide it, whichever way you roll - but no need to shout it from the rooftops, either.

The religiously inclined don't just preach against homosexuality

Not all religiously inclined people preach against homosexuality. Some are fine with it.

@Maria: You are one of the people here I would love to have a rainbow colored beer with.

It's about equality, being visible and not living in fear, as so many around the world do.

Most of all, it's about love.

Toning it down a bit might be helpful. You do look a bit silly.

It's a carnival, Jimizo.

Celibate?, a freudian slip, its celebrate.

Sorry Maria my comment intended to provoke debate, not to antagonise and upset.

I have habit of asking perhaps the wrong question at the most politically inappropriate moment. Stated politely without malice aforethought or intentionally bigoted.

Maria, irrespective of how one dresses, ethnically, sexual preference, why is there not a carnival just to celibate the valve of diversity, the choice of being whatever,whoever we are.?

Why don't you organise one, then, if it's such an issue for you. No one is stopping you.

sexual preference is such a minor issue and the way forward is to treat it as such. Most of us want sex and with which consenting adult or adults we get it with isn’t important. You are not ‘special’ or ‘fabulous’ because of your sexual orientation

This. I don't hold with discriminating against or bullying people because of their sexual preferences (assuming they're doing no one any harm - pedophiles, traffickers, etc., don't get a pass), but at the same time I don't need to know what they get up to in the privacy of their bedroom, nor am I interested in telling others about what goes on in my bedroom.

Nothing to be ashamed of, but also nothing to be proud of. It just is what it is.

Great progress is being made, but there are parts of the world where being gay is a death sentence. Basically the meaning of "gay liberation" is "leave us alone and let us live our lives". We can also contribute to society.

When does a gay person say, this is going too far?

Well, when ehh...i mean....oh, i see what you did here!

Still waiting a carnival to celebrate pride for romantic attraction between persons of the opposite sex.

If so, would not such a celebration be construed as marginalising LGBTQ rights?

Does political correctness demand gender dysphoria or sexual preference be annually the focal point in celebrating singularly LGBTQ pride?

Maybe, maybe not?

This is not something I would want young children to see.

Joy, tolerance, openness, and the celebration of love, you mean? no, I can imagine you wouldn't.

Hopefully your kids have already found out that they're straight, otherwise they might catch the gay.

Still waiting a carnival to celebrate pride for romantic attraction between persons of the opposite sex.

Funny how ppl are often jealous of what others have or do! Never attended a gay pride event & wouldn't attend a 'hetero' parade either, just not my thing.

Sydney's gay pride parades often coincide(d) with waratahs games (rugby) and oxford st is literally a few hundreds meters away from allianz stadium. Wouldn't say it was rugby fans' fav game of the season tbh (cause it was such a hassle to get there i mean, not because of the blokes wearing leather g strings & cop hats or that lgbt ppl may venture into 'our' pubs after the game, nahhh ;).

All good though, whatever floats your boat.

@Zichi

44 comments generated 364 votes. A large number indicating someone with multiple accounts?

Easy to explain. More people read this site than post comments. A lot of people prefer to watch on the side lines than get down in the blood and sand. In time more might develop a thicker skin and post. Who knows?

Happy Pride Day!!! Can't believe it's been 50 years and we have the right to be married to the ones we love!!! 

We keep evolving despite the right wing fanatics that want to keep us in the dark ages. Got to keep moving forward.....

I hope the country next year repudiates the politics of hate and the politicians who pander to it to gain a few votes. You know perfectly well who I'm talking about.

To those who think gays don't need these parades any more consider this.

Two men can legally marry one day and be just as legally be fired and evicted from their homes the next day for no other reason than being gay in 22 states.

This is not something I would want young children to see.

Toasted Heretic: Gay people - dress straight and conform! Don't draw attention to yourselves! Shut up, basically!

What on earth...? "Dressing straight"? If you're trying to paint a country's standard style of clothing as a form of anti-gay oppression, you've lost your mind.

@Jimizo

(1)

Toning it down a bit might be helpful. You do look a bit silly.

@Jimizo

(2)

I just think the sight of tens of thousands of regularly dressed people marching for equal rights would be a better tactic. There are important things at stake here.

(1) Agreed. A matter of taste perhaps.

(2) Agreed. Your statement is very similar to one I made in a conversation with a former friend years ago and just as likely to be ignored.

During the student protests on my US campus in 1970 I talked, briefly, with a long-haired friend - my first friend on campus - about effective ways on how to persuade people to oppose the Vietnam war. By people I meant the parents, siblings and friends of those student-deferment-less working class guys who were being drafted, not the mostly long-hair, deferment bearing kids on campus whose dope smoking might be inconvenienced by military service and whose idea of protest was marching around campus chanting “ROTC must go”. I told my friend to cut his hair and go talk to the people working at the Harley-Davidson plant if he wanted to make a difference. It was our last conversation.

@Jimizo - people may celebrate their lives by wearing whatever the heck they want - on this one day of the year. Do you sit in costume judgement on St Patrick's Day, Hallowe'en, and Carnival, as well? Don't be such a misery.

The heterosexuals, please, Maria open mind, be a little more objective.......

Maria, irrespective of how one dresses, ethnically, sexual preference, why is there not a carnival just to celibate the valve of diversity, the choice of being whatever,whoever we are.?

Basically what we want is "leave us alone and let us live our lives".

Actually, I rather think that holding ostentatious street parties sends out the "hey, look at me, I'm so special" message.

I honestly think sexual preference is such a minor issue and the way forward is to treat it as such. Most of us want sex and with which consenting adult or adults we get it with isn’t important. You are not ‘special’ or ‘fabulous’ because of your sexual orientation and you don’t need gold boots and angel wings to show pride in your sexual preference.

‘Leave us alone and let us get along with our lives’ is a fine mantra.

Strangerland that was not fair to my post at all. I never said they should hide anything. I would certainly not join a parade to gather with heteros and declare to the world that we are proud heterosexuals. And seriously the key reason is because rubbing that in gay people's faces would be wrong. Rubbing it in asexual people's faces would be wrong. And rubbing it in bisexuals' faces would be wrong.

I understand that these parades were necessary in the past, but these need to quietly end now. Don't say I didn't warn you. I don't want to see the back lash.

Washington Post:

Gilead’s deal to provide free HIV prevention drug for Trump effort is getting House scrutiny

Doesn’t match with the Trump attack on the article or the liberal urgings to vote anti-trump.

Millions? Lol

More like people had no choice but to see this crap on the streets. Far better things to parade.

There is a difference between this and St Patrick’s Day or Halloween or similar events for me. People dressing up for those events know they look silly but they aren’t trying to achieve anything. The silly costumes switch a lot of people off.

Usually far right types or those who fear the rainbow culture.

I just think the sight of tens of thousands of regularly dressed people marching for equal rights would be a better tactic. There are important things at stake here.

Gay people - dress straight and conform! Don't draw attention to yourselves! Shut up, basically!

While I accept that I’m a grumpy and miserable sod, I remember a grumpy and miserable gay guy I worked with telling me something similar. His other pet peeves included straight women hanging around gay guys to look cool and feel ‘secure’ and the gay press.

LGBT people have all sorts of different opinions and outlooks, of course. It's not a mono-thought clique, Jimizo. As for people of different sexualities hanging out with each other, would you prefer a more segregated approach? Most LGBT clubs/pubs have a mixed clientele (not sure about here) and you get all kinds of people there. Gay, straight, bi, fluid, curious etc etc. Some wear suits and some wear wings. Isn't it great?

I am all for people being free to be gay, but pride parades are just rubbing it in people's faces and they are asking for a backlash. You don't want the pendulum on either side. You want it to stop in the middle.

Great! Now translate that into anti-trump votes in 2020.