Reply #72: What a great question. Somewhere along the line...

[Smarmie Doofus]

very early on , in fact,( probably in the late 70's) the Gay Pride parades stopped being about politics and gay rights and started to be about hedonism vs. puritanism.

Thus the basic issue has been forever confused. I'm primarily interested in political rights, so I generally don't go to gay pride any more since the central message is "hedonism is good; puritanism is bad". This proposition may or may not be true but it is a separate and distinct issue from whether gay people should have rights equivalent to non-gays... which is absolutely true.

Additionally, the conjoining of the two issues has the added deleterious effect of losing support for equal rights of people who might not agree that , for example, "hedonism is better than puritanism", but might agree that sexual minorities should be treated fairly.

Possible solution: hedonists ( of all sexual varieties) march on Fat Tuesday; supporters of equal rights for sexual minorities march on the last weekend in June.

IMHO, your humble opinion is on the money.