The good guys won last weekend. Not talking about the Rays, obviously (OK, they won one) or the U.S. vs. Ghana (Could you have kept the cheers down just a little bit, loud South African guy at Queenshead?).
No, I mean the score at St. Pete Pride: SPP marchers and celebrants, 80,000. Protesters, 5 or 6.
That was the approximate ratio (and the reported numbers ) at this year's parade and festival, according to coverage in the St. Pete Times. Of course, the Times led the story with the protesters — to make the point that there weren't many of them — when maybe they should have been a footnote. But then, I'm leading with them, too.
Because they were just that much fun. I handed out copies of CL's Pride Issue along the parade route, and even managed to sneak a few into the hands of the Jesus-preachin' homo-haters. Maybe they'll learn something (though this is a not a crowd amenable to other points of view, as evidenced by the hail of homophobic comments on the Times story).
Best moment: The shouting match between protesters and the crew atop the CL/Chelsea Nightclub fire truck, and, of course, our coup de grace: the siren. Sorry if we burst some eardrums, any of you marchers who were in the vicinity (and you thought vuvuzelas were loud!), but there's something satisfying about obliterating hate speech with a good loud siren blare.
CL's James Ostrand took some great photos along the way, like the one above. More after the break.
This article appears in Jun 24-30, 2010.