[Marshal]

I prefer supporting things so long as they are not harming anyone/thing.

I think "gay" parades are dumb in many ways. So?
"Gay Pride" parades are a whole lot less dumb. But they are still kind of dumb. The thing is, so are all parades.

A parade is a show, a celebratory show, but a show nonetheless. To be a good one involves expression, artifice, humour, dazzle . . . fun. Pride is a blast. And it promotes a wide range of things - which is great by me.

Our Pride parade is a crazy, and while a bit of an eye opener, it was a great experience for my kids . . . they knew the values of open acceptance, they knew the world was broader than their own: Pride showed them a bit of "crazy" being cheered on by the community at large. They learned a lot of good, even though they were sometimes a bit confused, and sometimes giggling too much to watch. As adults, both of them have thanked us for exposing them to such things in a manner that incorporated them into our 'family normal.'

It takes an open, but also educated, mind to take something like a big city Pride extravaganza in and process it. To say it is about banging people of your own sex is ludicrously superficial, if not just downright missing the point . . . not just of Pride (a party coming out of centuries of oppression) but of parades and celebrations of any kind (one group/community expressing something they feel special about to the larger populous).

And, don't struggle too much BobLoblawsLawBlog, you probably are unlikely to understand. All I would ask, is for you to not criticize everything you don't get, and save it for the truely bad stuff: like hate based things, ideologies that kill, starve, uproot and displace people, things that are wiping out all the animals, and plants, and the beautiful nature of the world at hand. Good luck.