Anyway, I saw something at Pride last year that ended-up crystallizing some thoughts of mine; this year, I made sure to bring my camera:
The above is a shot of one of the hundreds of trash receptacles that lined the streets of Saturday's festival. As you can see, the event's primary sponsor is a Lube company. Got Lube? Pretty clever!
Now, I see the gay rights movement as being at a more crucial juncture than that of any other group in the United States. Homosexuals are the only group still discriminated against by legislation in this slow-learning country of ours. Many many many stupid, fucked-up retards in America want it to be illegal for people who love each other to be able to raise families and share health benefits - and the law is on their side. It's a disgusting situation that America will soon look upon with the same shame we now reserve for the fact that we made my grandma use a different water fountain.
Considering the utter seriousness and urgency of this matter, I need to raise the following question: What the fuck are these stupid fucking queens doing??? Don't you realize that having a Gay Pride parade sponsored by a fucking LUBE company is like having the Million Man March sponsored by Kentucky Fried Chicken and Watermelon flavored Magnums?? Don't you understand how this enforces the stereotype of Gays as promiscuous nymphomaniacs, and once again associates the whole gay rights movement with SEX?
Gays, you should have one concern right now, and that's getting the US government to end legal discrimination against you. To do that, you need to think practically, and not be more concerned about throwing a campy party with free lube, condoms, and cockrings. Seriously, you're being dumber than black people.
You want Bank of America. You want Time Warner. You want Starbucks. You do not want a fucking LUBE company, or Durex, or VibePlease, makers of the official anal-intruder kit.
I'll tell you something else about these Got Semen? wastebasket-ads since no one has figured it out in the last year. The following is a conversation I have NOT YET had with my kids, since thank jesus they are not yet old enough to read, but I guarantee you others are having it, since they put these fucking things all over a festival in the park and then set up a fucking bouncy-castle like the bat-signal beacon for every goddamn kid in the neighborhood to come running:
Look Daddy! Got Milk!
Uh....yeah!
Wait Daddy - oh...it only looks like it. Milk doesn't start with L ... Lube? What's that?
Uh... well...
WHAT Daddy, tell me!
Well it's like this hun... uh... the anus, while it provides some natural lubricant, is on average much smaller, tighter, and dryer than a woman's vagina. Therefore, many gay men use lubricant to grease up their penises and assholes so that they can enter each other with greater ease and with less pain. In SOME cases, gay women may use Lube as well - usually with strap-ons - but even then its usage is generally still limited to anal penetration - again, the vagina itself tends to provide easier entry- yes, even for a big stone-butch dyke's strap-on that she keeps a fiberglass case for, boils in vinegar, and calls "Gollum." Come to think of it Katie, whaddo I know? I suppose that jacking a fistfull of that slick shit all over a veiny goddamn falsecock wouldn't hurt either.
Oh.
And then this white lawyer park slope muthafucka, who MAKES the goddamn laws, is walkin away pissed off that he just had to explain that shit to his little kid - even if he finds a way of dancing around it a little more elegantly than the conversation above.
Listen: What do you think he does next? Does he think "It's really time to get these people equal rights" - or does he think "Jesus these filthy fucking faggots with their greasy penises and assholes."
Get with the fucking program you collective numbnutses! Even the burnt-out hippies are realizing that if they want to legalize pot, they have to shave and put on suits and pretend to be productive - not show up in Dead shirts with they blond dreadlocks, taking bong hits on the stairs of the governor's office.
I asked my best friend why she thought the movement still seemed so stuck in this juvenile, tasteless, arrested mentality. Her theory is that most of this shit is organized by campy gay men, and that's legitimately the kind of stuff they are into and want to project as a badge of pride. Perhaps all the "normal" gay people are too busy with their productive jobs and families, not worried about organizing pride festivals.
All I can say is, yall niggas need to think about perception. The same way that puffy and Jay-Z know to have Jewish lawyers, yall muthafuckas need a PR director or some shit to get your shit straight.
Don't ask me to hook you up, I'm too busy heading to 4th ave; popcorn chicken from KFC is sounding tight right about now.
35 comments:
Ok, now this is the best post ever EVER EVER.
As a lesbian, I thank you from the bottom of my heart.
I have tears in my eyes right now. Thank you blognigger.
No joke-
This is probably the most prolific commentary I've seen on the state of the gay rights movement.
I'm going to circulate this, because frankly I'd like to hear an official response.
Yes, Blognigger, some KFC does sound pretty good about now, though I like Church's better.
Your commentary about the homosexual population of our country is spot-on. I certainly don't mind what they do in the privacy of their own space, but I don't want to have to explain it to children.
Cordially,
Jefferson Davis
Richmond, Virginia
Deo Vindici
ARGH!!! jefferson_davis...
Why does your first on-topic comment have to be so fucking clueless?!?
You've completely missed the point and sound like a homophobic fool.
I never thought I'd say this: PLEASE go back to posting about c++
Ah, I dunno.
I'm a 49yo gay man and I have been hearing arguments of this kind now for about 20 odd years. The favor they seem to find with lesbians like amelia_bedelia -many of whom have inherited the dominant culture's ideal of the female as guardian of puritan sexual morality - is also very much familiar.
I suppose there is nothing inherently wrong with being lectured on political strategy and public behavior by a straight male, but a little humility would not go amiss in the same way it doesn't go amiss in whites offering similar lectures to black folks.
For instance, it seems you have not entertained the notion that the advisability of things like 'Got Lube' on trash cans has been argued about extensively in the queer community and probably was by the Brooklyn Pride Committee as well. They don't need your advice since they have heard it all before. They just came to different conclusions.
No doubt the trash bin advertisement was part of a sponsorship deal and had Starbucks or the other terribly respectable corporations you mention won the bid, it would be their advertisement occupying that space.It is very doubtful that there is any significant political impact one way or another: the majority of Americans support non-discrimination laws and that majority is particularly large in places like New York City.
What keeps that public preference from being manifest everywhere as law is the presence of a highly-organized and well-disciplined opposition animated by both religious fervor and neurosis. In the unlikely event that any representatives of this faction happened to be at Brooklyn Pride, I strongly doubt that the trash bin hardened their resolve or provoked their neurosis any more than the fact of the parade itself. In the meantime, Brooklyn Pride, got an assist in paying their bills.
The anti-gay faction is most certainly losing the culture war right now and will continue to do so, mainly because many of their children think their parents are full of shit and the mainstreaming of gay culture for commercial ends. Therefore, since lube does figure prominently in the lives of sexually active gay males, why whitewash it during a celebration dedicated to living without shame about one's sexuality? It's not as if the ad featured an explicit illustration. If fried chicken is equally as prominent in black lives, that shouldn't whitewashed either. Equality is not equality if it is conditional.
I see no problem with a parent being provoked into a discussion about gay sexuality generally and lube specifically with any child old or smart enough to take an interest. The notion that knowledge of sex (particularly homo-sex) is so potentially explosive and destructive that one must be super-careful as to how and when it gets imparted is irrational and oppressive. Besides the parent is always at liberty to impart their neurosis to their hapless child by simply declining to discuss it.
I have really gotten tired of the unproven delicacy of children's emotions and intellects being the bottom line for public behavior and the limits of mainstream culture. In Park Slope recently I got shooshed by a parent for saying 'Fuck' (as an expletive) in a private conversation in a restaurant at around 9 in the evening. This is bullshit.
My contribution to other folks children begins and ends with the taxes I pay for the schools I don't use, the buses that get them there, the police that contain them through the delinquency years and the subsidies they get at publicly funded colleges. I also make up the difference for the tax deductions their parents get and the double benefits they get at work. Anyone who, after all that, considers me to teach their children good manners or spare their parents difficult conversations wants more from me or from organizations that represent me can kiss my lubed-up queer ass.
Once upon a time, being political meant defining and defending your "rights." How the lesbian movement turned into an anal sex platform beats me. When did anal sex become the main course?!!Gay men, who are now proud married parents have used the gay mafia to silence any discussion about promiscuity while they fuck themselves silly on crystal meth.Let's spend more money on AIDS education? Let's not. Not here. I dare you to criticize ANYTHING gay men do and not suffer the backlash. But I always firmly believed lesbians are different; less sex; less superficial. Now, anal lube is their symbol of "liberation" too. I'm sorry , but my clitoris is not in my ass.
@michael
good, thoughtful comment, but you're definitely sounding a little Ralph Naderish at this bit:
Therefore, since lube does figure prominently in the lives of sexually active gay males, why whitewash it during a celebration dedicated to living without shame about one's sexuality? It's not as if the ad featured an explicit illustration. If fried chicken is equally as prominent in black lives, that shouldn't whitewashed either. Equality is not equality if it is conditional.
By "Ralph Naderish" I mean you sound a little unwilling to recognize that you might have to give a little as far as a theoretical concession is concerned in order to obtain the least-evil and practically-achievable end-result.
True I'm a straight guy, but let me try to humbly submit my explanation of what I believe and what I think BN was saying:
The reason to show a little taste
and not wave a flag-o-lube is because to do so does make gay men seem a little sex-crazed, which of course is not the case.
My personal feeling is that blognigger didn't go far enough - that your movement is actually being damaged by all the weirdos in leather and drag, going out of their way to seem like extreme sexual deviants.
There's no way that crap helps the team image of most gay people, whom i feel are just trying to be happy, get married, and get by.
Blognigger is right on as usual.
Michael on the slope can kiss my ass. I hate it when people without children start bitching about how much they pay to raise MY kids...yeah, who needs a population anyway?
The reason to show a little taste
and not wave a flag-o-lube is because to do so does make gay men seem a little sex-crazed, which of course is not the case.
First of all, there is no connection between promiscuity and anal lubricant. I think it is fair to say that all those respectable married gay couples probably go through more lube than anyone because they have more sex than anyone. Happily married couples fuck a lot, at least in the first few years.
But pursuing that line of argument dignifies the idea that there is something wrong and something uniquely gay about being sex-crazed. I do not wish to dignify that idea.
All young men are sex-crazed. The main difference between gay men and straight men is simply in the realm of opportunities. Straight men are more limited in sexual opportunities because of the sexual double standard they impose upon women. They trade heavily in the idea of sluts and whores and heap contempt on women who enjoy commitment-free sex the way men do. They then turn the inevitable dampening effect this has on opportunity into a virtue.
Most gay men do not feel or show contempt for readily available sexual partners and most do not feel ashamed about sport-fucking. So yeah, married or single we probably get laid more than you and we're not sorry. And we are also winning the culture wars with or without your approval.
Michael on the slope can kiss my ass. I hate it when people without children start bitching about how much they pay to raise MY kids...yeah, who needs a population anyway?
I never said I resent the tex burden of raising well-educated non-criminal children. I am happy to pay taxes to send your kids to a school where they might perhaps learn better manners and a more persuasive way with words than you have.
What I resent is the implication that I have obligations beyond that. I was speaking specifically to BN's hypothetical difficult conversation with a child about lube and to the arrogant woman who expected me to self-censor at a restaurant she had brought her children to.
The implication that you had children out of some sense of duty to sustain the population is certainly ludicrous. You have made a choice based on personal preference. You thought having children would make your life better than it would be without and it is a choice the tax code supports. Now you kiss my ass.
I've got to learn to stop trusting my instincts - at first it seemed like Michael might have a chip on his shoulder!
@michael in the slope: well said. all of it.
Step 1: Minority is oppressed
Step 2: Minority engages in behavior that majority might not approve of. ie being loud in theaters, talking out loud about anal sex, having bright-extra-shiny hubcaps, etc etc etc
Step 3: Minority starts taking pride in that behavior. Minority is keeping its identity despite oppression! Minority is telling majority what it can stick up its tight butt!
Step 4: Minority starts gaining respectability by majority.
Step 5: Some members of minority start questioning behaviors, maybe they aren't such a good idea, especially to discuss in public.
Step 6: a split develops in minority. Maybe not a destructive split but still a split. Between those who want to stop behavior, or at least hide it; and those who see behavior as a big part of their identity. Sometimes one member might say to another member: "you aren't really in our minority, you just want to be a part of the majority", which causes the recipient to be hurt or angry or both.
Step 7? well looking at the history of the Italians and Irish, it seems that the over-the-top behaviors do diminish over time, as the minority moves into suburbia, and joke about their crazy old relatives.
which is almost kinda sad.
I personally think that these distinguishing behaviors shouldn't be ceased or hidden in a closet. An event like Gay Pride or Carnival can feature "out of the envelope" behavior. If a grownup doesn't want to see it, they shouldn't go to it.
I don't have kids, but if I did, and they asked me what got lube meant, I would say A) it is advertising and advertising always tries to grab your attention, and B) that lube is something people in love rub on each other's bodies to feel nice. Like moisturizer.
Middle Aged White Lady who used to write COBOL
in fact, this now has me going.....
one of the things that I **know** is a privilege of being an upper-middle-class white person is that if an upper-middle-class-white person does something stupid or mean or gross or even just a bit distasteful, I don't have to think about how that reflects on ME. I don't have to worry that my employer or a politician or anyone will assume that I really want to engage in that behavior.
And if **I** do something stupid or mean or gross or distasteful, I don't get the added ignonomy of knowing that my actions reflect on all middle-aged-white-ladies.
So when I hear a moderate black person or a moderate gay person or a moderate anyone putting down some behavior of someone else in their minority, I wonder at that added weight of worry that "this will reflect on me".
But what if it didn't reflect on you? Of course others will say it does, but do you have to believe that?
Does a quiet gay couple living in the suburbs **have** to feel that a leather gay man wearing a cock ring on a gay pride float reflects on them?
Cuz you know what? If a middle aged white lady did something rude or thoughtless or otherwise awful, I might not think highly of her, but I wouldn't think of her as having anything to do with me.
And if you aren't granted such a privilege, I say, just take it anyway.
MAWL W U T W Cobol
As a Bi-sexual man who is married to a woman and has kids, (THAT's the 'B' part of LGBT Michael) I can already tell that Michael doesn't consider me to be a part of the queer community. Believe me I know his type 1000 times over.
The bottom line is that I KNOW that the guys in the parade thumping their chests half-naked-in-leather are just sex fetishests, the likes of which exist on ALL sides of the sexual orientation spectrum - and by trying to justify their fetishes as normal, they are absolutely setting the gay rights movement back by 50 years.
I am absolutely not represented by this crap, by Michael, by the pleather, and I agree that LGBT should R-E-A-L-I-S-T-C-A-L-L-Y be concerned with the image it portrays to mainstream america so that we can win the rights everyone else has.
Sorry, right now, when Joe in a Trailor things of gay people, they think of you in that bullshit leather marching with a feather boa.
that is FUCKED UP and it is costing REAL PEOPLE REAL RIGHTS. GROW UP.
@mawl
Don't you understand, we CAN'T just take it anyway. This isn't some game being played in our heads, or a mental hurdle to "get over"
People are making LAWS against gays because when they think of gays, they think of these queens in leather, who don't have the taste, decency, and common sense to keep their genitals to themselves during a goddamn parade.
Because of that image, the perception doesn't change, and so the laws sure as hell won't either
Oops, in offering my sympathies erif, I left out your boyfriends.
If only we had more polysexual polygamists at the front of our movement, we'd have the White House by now.
Man this Michael guy is touchy. As a gay writer in Paris I know once remarked, "The Rights of Man do not extend to your right to pull your pants down in the Tuilleries."
Michael has outed himself as another version of hedonistic bourgeois conservatism masked as revolutionary bohemian libertarianism.
Notice how dude won't stop harping on how his taxes support my lifestyle choice, i.e. having children. Whatever guy. How exactly do my kids give me "double benefits" at work? Cause I have yet to receive them.
If someone told me not to use the word fuck in front of their kids at a restaurant I would make a point of repeating it.
This reminds me of a piece I saw on The Onion a while back with a headline along the lines of "Gay pride march sets gay rights back 20 years" It featured interviews with uptight straight people saying things like "I thought I supported gay rights but if it's all about hairy men in crotchless leather pants I don't want them to have rights."
@angryaussie
big win, great point.
The Onion...delights in crapping on pieties and regularly publishes stories guaranteed to upset someone: “Christ Kills Two, Injures Seven In Abortion-Clinic Attack.” “Heroic PETA Commandos Kill 49, Save Rabbit.” “Gay Pride Parade Sets Mainstream Acceptance of Gays Back 50 Years.” There’s no predictable ideology running through those headlines, just a desire to express some rude, blunt truth about the world.
Reminds me of blognigger himself...
@michael
the majority of Americans support non-discrimination laws...
Dude, what planet are you on????
Wow, amazingly no one has said the most obvious thing about Lube vs. Marriage -- perception DOES matter specifically in this instance, because no one, however forward-thinking, loves the idea of children being raised in a household with parents -- of ANY sexual persuasion -- who are indiscriminately promiscuous.
And if free, indiscriminate love with all comers is going to be part of the political credo of the gay rights movement, then obviously in no way is that reconcilable with the inherently conservative act of raising a family.
Michael's claim that lube can or should be equally identified with monogamous couples is laughably disingenuous.
"Michael's claim that lube can or should be equally identified with monogamous couples is laughably disingenuous."
Actually, all of the monogamous couples I know use lube. In fact, now that Babeland is in PS, I'm going to break out of my K-Y fixation and find something new.
While Michael (imo) went a bit overboard, some of what he has to say is true. I don't think BN's language (and it's lovely to see him switching mid-post) is just that. Language. However, there are also a lot of varying conversations that don't involved specific actions that can be used when explaining GOT LUBE to a child. Besides, I use lube when I'm taking my baby's temperature. Don't you?
Blognigger. Spot On. As a 20 year old gay male that doesn't fit into the mold set by my more promiscuous forebearers and friends, I constantly feel that I am being labeled as "not gay enough" for some of them. Further more, every time I have gotten into an argument about gay rights/equality, those against are mostly against it because the archetype that exists in their minds is that of the fuck-happy queens that are most visible in Pride parades and the like. I understand that sexual liberation is an important part of gay history, but it is by no means all that being gay is, and I'm tired of that stereotype following me around.
The gay community needs a hardcore PR campaign for a number of reasons: equal rights, yes, but also so we can have a heritage we can be proud of.
We really are talking around the issue. Through all his ranting BN made one main assertion: that the Got Lube campaign at one poorly attended gay pride march in a very liberal city will magnify the perception that gays are promiscuous and thereby set back gay rights in some important but unspecified way.
He didn't prove that - or attempt to - and neither has anyone else. And like I said at the outset, I have heard all these arguments (if they could be called that) for the past 20 years. Back in the day they were actually put more skillfully.
Ericf and particularly Seth at least provided a great deal of unintentional humor. I am reminded of a Nobel prize-winning astrophysicist I knew in Praque who once described an American poseur he'd met in Paris (whilst pulling down his pants in the Tuileries) as embodying 'arrogance tempered with stupidity.'
Au Revoir mes amis!
(working too late, upgrading software.)
Listen, I get the legal argument, that conservatives would use a single feather boa to take away gay rights.
But I would just like to point out another straight-white privilege:
Straight white men have lots of venues where they can behave absolutely horribly. Think of sports games where they paint themselves and get really drunk and dance around.
I visited New Orleans lately, and walked down Bourbon Street. It wasn't even spring break and the night street was full of young, white males, completely drunk, and behaving like idiots, and occasionally vomiting.
Don't y'all think it is a bit unfair that a straight white male can behave that way, and still keep his rights? And if someone else lets loose a bit, they get their rights taken away. And has to represent everyone in their subgroup.
Just sayin'.
btw - I have a job opening for a Information Systems Analyst Programmer, in a medium-sized nonprofit. If you are a good systems person I don't care if you are black, gay, M, F, MTF, FTM or as white-and-nerdy as Al Yankovick. Feel free to contact me offline at brooklynj at earthlink dot net
I thought it was just me.
Part of the pride celebration is a little race. At these races they give out a t-shirt. Was I expected to wear this t-shirt, with the name of the lube company covering the whole back, with pride?
And I can't say that anyone else did, either.
Why do married people deserve tax benefits at all? And yes, I resent paying taxes to raise other people's kids. That's why I choose not to have kids- because I don't want to pay for them.
@bigb:
Where is the benefit that married people receive regarding taxes? Hasn't anyone ever heard of the "marriage PENALTY"?
OK, you don't like paying money so that other people's children can go to school. That is called "living in society." We are all somewhat dependent on and responsible for one another. Do you like Medicare and Social Security? That is funded today by yesterday's children. It will be funded tomorrow by today's children.
Why do I feel like I am talking to an eighth grader who just read Ayn Rand for the first time?
Speaking of topics that parents would have a difficult time explaining to their children, what about the erectile dysfunction ads on TV!
Straight white men may have many venues to act like idiots but they arent doing so under the flag of SWM - nor individually do they generally point to such occasions as points of pride (havent seen too many SWM runnign for congress busing out the old Mardi Gras pictures - or professionals at work hanging up pictures of themselves topless with J-E-T-S painted across their fat belly.)
And since only in your imagination is their even an identifiable group as "SWM" - please recognize that when SWM do divide into their subgroups - generally based on religion or ethnicity (or similar) - rarely do they intentionally parade around demonstrating the excess of their respective cultures as a point of pride - unless I missed the Italian Pride Parade featuring the "Handsomest Capo Contest" or the "Jewish Parade" featuring a money lending competition. And when these subgroups of SWM do act like morons under the rubric of their respective groups - like drunken St. Patrick Day behavior or the Mafia's involvement with the San Gennaro Feast - the whole identified group is diminished by it and criticism is often leveled toward 'the group' and many within the identified group feel great shame .
I know you want to attribute the basis of BN comments to some sort of double standard against gays - but frankly- the fact that it is being said, demonstrates how much more 'normal' the gay community is actually being treated.
@dave
well said, and funny, which helps. Welcome!
Michael in the slope said:
"I am reminded of a Nobel prize-winning astrophysicist I knew in Praque..."
Michael, LOL, as a lesbian, I clearly don't enjoy dick so kindly remove yours from my ass...
BN, I applaud your post. This is exactly why I have stopped participating in Pride festivities.
Persons like Michael are nothing more than selfish, emotionally-stunted imbeciles willing to sacrifice the REAL and long-sought-after progress of the group for the yearly "thrill" of parading around in public with a riding crop up the ass while pausing to stroke themselves in front of Saint Patrick's.
BN, as far as your comment about us homos being "dumber than black people", please....I envy and long for one iota of the dignity of the Civil Rights movement.
BN you are right on. Most gay men and lesbians I have met were interested in things like career, finding a good partner, equal rights, and family. The same as me. I think the majority would enjoy these events more if we had less in-your-face sex at them. I live in 'liberal' Portland,Or and sometimes it feels like I need to turn my head from things. And yes we had the GOT LUBE? boxes. So charming. The problem is that I can't ever imagine my gay comunity getting pissed off enough for another Stonewall riot. So hopefuly we figure out that we need to stop using these self-deprecating and patronistic business partners in order to attain the equal rights that we are entitled. Thank you for opening my eyes to this.
I don't agree wholly with anybody here, but I'd like to point out a couple things.
As Michael said, these arguments have been going on for a long time in the GLBT communities--but similar arguments about appropriate behavior, and how (not) to represent a marginalized group, have also been voiced in connection with other rights movements. It's not just leathermen who've been considered unrepresentative and damaging to the rights of so-called normal gays and lesbians: lesbians and women of color have been excluded from feminist groups; women ousted as irrelevant to the needs of race-based rights groups; racial minorities from the concerns of all kinds of political groups. And just because we may consider these excluded parties *now* to be integral parts of these movements, doesn't mean that at the time they weren't marginalized as deviant, unnecessary, or embarrassing at one time or another. Feminists (for the most part--there's still homophobia in feminism, of course) generally no longer assume that a lesbian is an anti-progressive, oversexed man-wannabe who is deliberately skewing the cause of women's rights with her own abnormal agenda--but that assumption has been made in the very recent past. Or we can go a long time debating the role of militants v. peacemakers in the Civil Rights Movement--but we ought to remember the accusations and counter-accusations of Uncle Tomming and "justifying white people's fears" and so forth, that were absolutely about *how to behave*, and how to be acceptable to whites. We may no longer view any of these groups as being as embarrassing or tacky or perverse as a leatherman--but that doesn't mean that, in the long view, the feelings weren't identical.
And because of that, I think it's dangerous to assume that there's a *right* way to behave that will earn the respect of hate groups in power, or that a "wrong" way to behave, as manifested by a small subset of a minority, can be held responsible for the larger group's failure to attain rights. Maybe parading in leather is SUCH a wrong way to behave that it really can set gay rights back a hundred years--I don't think so, but that's my opinion. The more important question is, doesn't it make anybody at all UNEASY to suggest that it is, given what we know about the failure of dominant groups to acknowledge and support full rights for any minority? It's easy to blame unfair laws against gays on the leathermen--and it's easy to blame racism on the behavior of crack addicts, immigrants, and the Asian guy who coughed on you in the subway. But it's a little too easy, and that should be the biggest argument against it.
Besides which, it may be tacky to be all lube-happy in a parade in Brooklyn (I find it tacky, because I'm a square kind of person), but in a country where you can be the straightest whitest looking thing but still be murdered for some perceived kind of deviance--a public space in which you can be yourself for a day is an incredibly valuable thing. And rights, when they finally get extended, have to be for everybody, and not just for the people who look as though they deserve them.
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