Go to Gay Pride. Do it!

As I mentioned in my breakfast rant, this Sunday is Motor City Pride, the Detroit area's gay pride extravaganza.

Extravaganza is possibly a strong word, but it's a our big street festival in Ferndale. And it seems like this year more than most recent years it might be a good time to get out and make your presence known.

I know our Pride event here has a bum rap, and compared to most major cities it's not quite in the "amazing" category (I almost wept when I saw the Milwaukee PrideFest website, it looks like so much fun). It's SUPER early in the Pride season - June is Gay Pride Month on account of the Stonewall Riots happening the third weekend in June - and it's not a parade or anything.

But it's worlds away from the Pride festivals from when I first moved back to Michigan, when they were held in a parking deck in Royal Oak (yes that's right). Now it is orchestrated by the Triangle Foundation - some of the Metro Detroit gay community's heaviest lifters - and is a full street festival. It's verrry interesting people watching and solid family fun!

And as for the lackluster reviews, well who really is to blame if a community's Pride event is not as great as it could be? I think ... the community is. As with gay bars, a gay community gets the Pride event it deserves. We aren't going to make it any better by sitting it out - higher attendance means better sponsorships and a better event next year!

This isn't intended as a tepid endorsement of Motor City Pride, but I'm a little angry today so this is what you get. I'd really like to encourage everyone to put aside any city/suburb rivalries and go, just to show the tiniest bit of community solidarity, and maybe make some new lesbigay friends!

Motor City Pride includes a mass commitment ceremony Saturday day, a movie event Saturday night (featuring a new film starring Tori Spelling!), and the Street Festival on Sunday from noon onward. Oh and lest I forget, there will be a Doggie Drag Show at 5pm sponsored by none other than our friends at Canine to Five!