Still all joking aside, like the shirt on the chest of my favorite drag king, Fox Malone, read, "Queer rights are civil rights." Or the sign carried by a member of PFLAG: "I hope one day my children will live in a world or acceptance without feeling afraid or rejected." I feel the same way about my kids and they're straight. That's as American as loving a hotdog or a slice of pie. The sticker the Stonewall Democrats distributed that day best crystallized the meaning of the morning in three words: "Equal Means Equal."
Of course when it comes to buying a part in a long-time big time annual downtown pageant that dares to dream all Americans have equal rights and are not only tolerated, but embraced, lots of folks are ready to buy in to selling some dreaming. Gay America is bought and sold America just like everything else these days, except with cuter models.
Macy's has long backed parades with big balloons, but generally not with this many fishnet hose on so many of the men who held the strings. But if you don't believe me,
check my Facebook photos. (That's right, I'm inviting you to friend me and check my pics of pecs and pickled people in every color of the Rainbow and generally several at once on a sunny Saturday morning in Phoenix.)On Pride Day, however corporate and academic America simply see Americans and their dollars in action. Bank of America's gays' green spends just as gaily as at US Airways' or at ASU. ASU Gay? A fact the folks from U of A have been rumoring about this for years. And, just saying, there has got to be some joke available about juxtaposition of the words "gay" and "Cox" (as in Cox Cable, yet another corporate sponsor); but I am sure you have already thought of some.
--mikel weisser writes from the left coast of AZ
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