Oh God, the Folsom Street Fair is this weekend.

[RandySF]

Time again to put bags over our heads while "real America" points and laughs. Will organizers ever understand that the gay teenager in Topeka, Scranton or Tex-arcana has a tough enough time deciding whether to "come out", without their parents pointing and laughing at the Fox News coverage? I guess not so long as they are having their own god time.

I believe in freedom of expression, but every year at Pride, the national news cameras are already focused on the guy with the bare-assed leather chaps and not on the same-sex parents who get the loudest cheers. When will they get that this event feeds into the worst stereotypes of the City and the GLBT community?

[Ian David]

1. Guy I know ran into his Orthodox rabbi buying floggers at Folsom Street East in NYC. Oy. n/t

[donco6]

2. I love Folsom Street.

There's nothing wrong with it. Bare-assed chaps and all.

[Luminous Animal]

3. Fuck 'em!

I really do not care what "real America" thinks. I do not care if they "point and laugh." The organizers are not responsible for the feelings of every gay teenager in America.

[LeftyMom]

4. Heteros make asses of ourselves in public, too.

:shrug:

"Real America" is mostly the neighbors telling the Gladys Kravitzes of the world to STFU. And nobody persuadable is getting their idea of who gay people are from Fox News. Probably a lot of repressed types TiVOing the leather daddies for the spank bank though.

[Touchdown]

5. Oh' please. This is stupid. Are you from the 70s?

"Put on the public face" is just another way of saying "we lost the debate. Might as well assimilate"

You can't be a champion of diversity if you seek to suppress it.

It's just as plausible that that Kansas boy will probably think it's a fun time, and kinda hot.

[musette_sf]

6. thanks for the reminder!

wouldn't miss it for the world!

the FSF is NOT the Pride Parade, BTW.

[arcane1]

7. "real America" does point and laugh, but...

they don't change the channel either.

[MineralMan]

8. Seen Mardi Gras, have you?

You're way off base here.

[MineralMan]

9. Back in the closet, eh? That's what you want?

You won't find many takers here. Perhaps you've posted in the wrong forum....

[RandySF]

10. This is not holding hands or kissing on the sidewalk

We're talking random oral sex in the middle of the street. There's a difference.

[donco6]

12. Random oral sex?

Wow, I'm so totally there.

[MineralMan]

15. So, don't go. Seems simple enough to me.

[marmar]

11. The Folsom Street Fair is awesome.....

It's the only time in my life I've had a conversation with a topless woman in leather underwear and a guy in assless leather chaps with his earing-pierced member dangling at the same time, and it felt completely normal.

[alarimer]

13. Well what Palin calles "real America" fucking sucks

and I want no part of it.

We are a diverse nation, of all nationalities, races, creeds, sexual orientation, whatever. And we all need to live with it.

Those closed-minded sanctimonious, booger-eating morons need to shut the fuck up and get over it.

[Starry Messenger]

14. LOL.

Have you considered that the problem is Fox News? Peter LaBarbera is that you? How come all of the straight people who go to Sturgis Bike Week have all of their rights? So many questions, so little time...

[TommyO]

16. So, all of us have to dress in dockers and polo shirts so we don't offend some yahoo in Kansas?

I don't think so. The Folsom Street Fair is a gathering of leatherfolk, gay and straight, and quite frankly what narrow minded people like you and the anti-gay drones at Fox think is inconsequential.

[Libertas1776]

17. I hope it is

gayer and more in your face than ever. And if John and Jane Dodo from Peoria don't like it, let 'em change the channel.

[AsahinaKimi]

18. The SF pride celebration was awesome...

But I have to confess, I went mostly to see BoA!

She ate me up!! (Pun, her new song is called: Eat you up!)

[Solly Mack]

19. Way to blame the targets of bigotry by claiming they bring it on themselves

If they would only behave in a manner acceptable to bigots, how much easier the GLBT community would have it. Bigots wouldn't point and laugh or mock (or beat and kill)..and they would be ever so much more accepting of their own GLBT children coming out.

Piffle.

It wouldn't make a rat's ass bit of difference if the Folsom Street Fair featured men dressed in suits & ties or women dressed in tea dresses with grandma's pearls, bigots would still be bigots about it. All a bigot needs to hear is the word "gay" and off they go to bigot wonderland.

[rucky]

20. Hey, Folsom's good, clean fun!

My brother shopped there for my (heterosexual) wedding present.

:evilgrin: