Another paradox is that tolerance only goes so far, specifically the denial of benefits and responsibilities based on marital status to members of the same sex otherwise afforded to ‘straight’ couples. (A small aside, the limitations to those same rights are also denied to de facto relationships of opposite sex, which is just antiquated – but that’s whole other discussion).

Sunday afternoons Gay Pride parade in downtown Minneapolis, and follow up celebrations  in Loring Park,  were the last thing i expected to see on a warm lazy day in the mid-west. After all this is the state where the right wing extremist and US senator Michelle Backmann is from, who once said that people who are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender suffer from “sexual dysfunction” and “sexual identity disorders” . Yesterday morning at the local farmers market in St-Paul was more the cliche, with a distinct lack of diversity in all aspects, and a predominance for ‘White Country Corn Christianity’, and while buying a homemade soap from one vendor was told – “ohh” you work for the circus, “I bless you” as he hands me another bar (I scrubbed hard!).

Living in the US in these times, it’s fascinating to watch the sea-changes in cultural awareness and civil rights. It’s concerning to see that discriminatory views, based on religious ideology, are in some parts not minimizing.  But, as stated before, tolerance only goes so far. While hundreds marched and thousands watched the frivolities in relative peace and the moral police from Iran weren’t cracking down, one is never too far away from some gun totting idiot who thinks his views ‘in the name of god’ are the only ones worth living.

An old civil rights issue for the 21 century has re-emerged recently, (starting in the NYC Stonewall Riots of 1969) and it’s going to be hard to ignore or even argue against for much longer – the fact that the people of the same sexual orientation are just as entitled to live under the same laws as anyone else, marriage included. (that aside thing again – why not any relationships regardless marital status?)

To support my gay friends and there quest for equality here are some images of the days festivities.

Enjoy

Brad