I watched the 2006 Boston Gay Pride Parade last Saturday, June 10th, along with friends at the corner of Appleton and Columbus Streets in the South End. It was raining all day long, as you can see in the photos below. Luckily, I had worn my old PVC yellow rain jacket with hood - and let me tell you - it was everyone's envy! When everyone else was carrying umbrellas too feeble to withstand the winds, I stood comfortably on one corner enjoying the parade and secretly gloating over others who were stupid enough not to wear practical raingear.

     Speaking of the parade, it was the most pathetic parade I've ever seen in the nearly ten years that I have been watching. Due to inclement weather, the parade had to be delayed one hour. But it wasn't the weather that bothered me as much as it was the disorganization and the commonality of the parade. There were more of the same from previous years, and much less of new. You had the usual characters like drag beauty queens, topless dykes on bikes, and leathered muscle boys - nothing that I have never seen before. I was hoping that the two gay male mannequins would be paraded, but none of that sort. There was not a soul protesting Macy's either. And lo and behold - miraculously - I didn't see any religious freaks carrying "God Hates Fags" signs!

     Last night, I watched Larry King Live on CNN and the panelists debated a rather cliché topic: Is Homosexuality a Sin? The panel included America's first openly gay Episcopal bishop V. Gene Robinson, an openly lesbian Episcolian minister, a Southern Baptist minister, a conservative Catholic priest, a conservative Episcopalian priest, and Andrew Sullivan, an openly gay TIME columnist and devout Catholic who runs his own blog. Sullivan argued that he was born gay, that he is what he is, that he loves the Catholic Church, and encourages lapsed gay Catholics to come back to the church and to love their faith. The conservatives held on their literal interpretation of certain scriptures that allude to the condemnation of homosexual acts.

     Like the Boston Gay Parade, there was nothing, absolutely nothing, that I have not heard before. Religious gays will always find ways to make themselves believe that God loves them for who they are and what they do in the privacy of their bedroom as long as they're monogamous. On the other hand, the religious conservatives will always find ways to make themselves believe that every word in the Bible is divinely inspired and closed to interpretation. As Robinson brilliantly stated, the conservatives waste too much time scrutinizing, criticizing, judging and condemning gay people instead of focusing on real issues that truly threaten the world like diseases, poverty, social injustice, crimes, etc. We can spend as much time as we want debating human sexuality, doctrinal differences, theological questions and whether or not Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married and had children. Who cares? The conservatives may claim to be God's favorite children, but they also know that they will always fall short of His glory. Anyone who presumes to be spiritually pure will be the last to enter paradise. After all, we will all be judged for the way we treat each other, and not for how much goodness we have accomplished or how many Bible verses we can recite.

    I'm off to Washington, D.C. this weekend to attend a fashion show! Woo-hoo!