In Pride we trust?

It's a very grey, rainy Tuesday morning here in San Francisco. In fact, the downpour hasn't slowed in the past three hours. The cloud is low - and from up here in Twin Peaks, all I can see of the skyscrapers in downtown San Francisco are a few shrouded silhouettes, lost in the mist.

It's a world away from the sun and rainbows and warmth of this weekend's festivities: the 41st annual San Francisco Pride Celebration & Parade.

Now I'm a veteran of more than a handful of Gay Pride celebrations: my Pride cherry was popped back in London in 1993. At the time, Pride in London was still a relatively youthful and vocal 21 year old, whilst I was 19; wide-eyed and impressionable. And I loved that experience. I was awestruck by our sheer numbers, and made giddy by the feeling of strength that came from that. I loved the sense of camaraderie and shared celebration. It was something that I'd never experienced before - and I just lapped it up.

And since then I've done bite-sized and bucolic (Oxford), brassy and boozy (Manchester), slick and staged (Sydney) - and so I was looking forward to experiencing the daddy of gay prides here in San Francisco... which (along with New York) has been around the longest of all.

And, you know what? Rather than enjoying the confidence and maturity of the best years of your life, this 41 year old is having a bit of a mid-life crisis. Who am I? Why am I here? What do I want out of life?

And watching someone deal with their midlife crisis is never a pretty sight...

The Parade itself was a muddle of competing and contradictory niche causes: the Pink Pistols (a gay gun shooters group) armed with sex-toys, under a banner of "Rubber toys don't stop bad boys" (What the fuck?) followed by

pacifist lesbian vegetarians, gay christians walking in a march with gay humanists, our stridently independent Dykes on Bikes leading a parade that behind them includes women in bridles and

reins, pulling their men behind them in carts, whilst being swatted with riding crops. I can feel the most tenuous of rainbow threads between these groups straining to hold things together.

I mean, planning the parade order must have been like seating the most bitchy of dinner party guests: "Oooh, we can't have Planned Parenthood sitting next to the gay Catholics - they might not live-up to their name of 'Dignity San Francisco'...!"

Where was the consistent theme? Apparently, it was "In Pride we Trust". But what on Earth does that actually mean? What about Pride do we actually trust? Since my first euphoric, Damascene conversion to the cause of Gay Pride in London in 1993, I've lost my way. I'm not sure I believe in the power of these congregations anymore. So, rather than "In Pride We Trust", I'd paraphrase as "We hope that we can wring another couple of years out of this train-wreck before it all goes bust".

But, (and I'll get my trusty soapbox at the ready), wasn't this an opportunity to take-up a current cause? To make a statement? To shout, and demand and clamour? We had the massive victory for marriage equality in New York the day before. Where were the demands to achieve those same rights here in California? (We were waiting for someone to sing to the tune of New York, New York: "If I can (boom, boom) MARRY there, I'll marry (boom, boom) ANYWHERE...")

And it was just too damn long. We didn't manage to last-out the entire parade, having stood around on Market Street from 10.30am, it's hard to maintain interest when there are 10-minute gaps between floats, and so at 1.30pm (after three hours of standing around), we decided to call it a day. Never mind the quality, feel the LENGTH!

What the hell was with all the religious groups? And all the bloody politicians? Do we all have some form of rainbow-induced amnesia? But doesn't anyone remember the fact that the church (or, more accurately, organised religion) and the State have been happy to crimininalise and demonise us for years (look at this link, you can see that in the US, gay sex only became legal for a MAJORITY of the US population around 1985...). Now, I'm MORE than happy to have representatives of both friendly religious sects and supportive political parties...but why are they spending their time filling our Pride Parades, showing us what liberal, gay-friendly people they are, when they could be spending time with their colleagues in their churches and mosques and house and senates and halls, sharing their gay pride THERE, persuading their colleagues about how much things should be changing. I mean. If you REALLY wanted to help, why are you spending so much time preaching to the converted.

And whilst I'm at it, why was there so much enthusiasm for the brands appearing in the parade? I know that lots of people enjoy using Facebook and Google - but reserving the biggest cheers for these groups seemed kinda empty. Maybe I'm just a softie, but the volunteers from the health promotion and human rights charities had fewer representatives, and less impressive banners and balloons. But they are doing something for the community beyond

simply selling us stuff. Judging from the brands in attendance, gay customers are most profitable for banks (Wells Fargo, Bank of America and Chase all had large - and very sparkly - floats), Airlines (Virgin America's float was WAY better than United's....but where were Jet Blue and SouthWest?), Health Insurers and internet brands. And didn't brands used to sponsor a charity, support a cause to get their bit of publicity? We've now got so used to them to commandeering OUR space, that we let them advertise away, without any requirement to DO anything for us.

OK, OK. I know it's a cliche. But Pride marches' stock in trade are hot guys in speedos and hot chicks waving their bare-breasts about. How come we had plenty of the latter, and not much of the former? The closest we got was the Bare Chest Calendar guys...but, as my boyfriend said "they weren't so hot...I couldn't even be bothered to take a photo". So, sorry bare-chest guys, but we have been given such high expectations! I may contradict myself on the point about commercial brands in the parade, but of all those underwear brands (2Xist, Aussiebum, Calvin Klein, even Nasty Pig) not one could find time in their schedules to reward some of their dedicated customers with some tottie-on-a-truck...?

And I guess the fact that I'm lamenting the lack of my kinda eye candy begs the question: who IS the target audience for Gay Pride? Is it 'By Us, For Us'? Or is it about providing a shop-front for what the gay community has to offer the wider world? My experience is that it falls down on both of those. It's too niche-gay for the wider community, but too dumbed-down, too diluted and commercial to be an authentic celebration of what WE have to be celebrate about about being gay.

So. It seems sad to say it, but at 41 years old, I think it's time that SF Gay Pride hung-up it's rainbow and retired to the 'burbs.