Oh my ADJ, this "devil's advocate" is sounding rather undergraduate:

'It's about love, compassion, equality, justice, the empowerment of oppressed and marginalised people, plus challenging bigotry and conformity'

The floats are in 3 categories. Bare chested muscle maries, they show off their odious narcissism. Then those poor old dears who ought not take anything off at all. If only they saw themselves the way the world sees them. The smiling marching boys. The "dykes on bykes". Again.

Then there are the "political" floats. A few cleaver little snippy statements at the Church, some at right wing factions as opposed to how "free and wonderful" gay life is. Oh goody!

Then there are the commercial floats pretending not to be commercial floats. This includes the political parties of politicians and their gaggles pretending to be "gay friendly".

As to that prattish little twat: Addam Carr, his journalism has absolutely no credibility at all. He once claimed that all people with aids only had 5 years to live, back in 1989. Then other gay journalists furiously claimed Sydney: an "Addam Carr free zone". He was one of those snottish pratts from Melbourne who relished on their mortality. Some of these people are still alive, 25 years later...

Addam Carr, obsessively a Sydney hater, will stop at nothing to put Sydney down. Not much has changed in 30 years.

Oh, ya gotta see the funny side to this.

Most posters in OLO know that I'm not gay but I like to know what is going on.

Yawn.

Again.

Anyway, ADJ, have a happy and safe Mardi Grass. Please say no to Crystal Meth or any strange drugs. This is one sentence I say in sincerity.

Whilst I neither like nor agree with ADJ's pointed comments about Christians, gay people [and I'm not one BTW] repeatedly get the equivalent or worse thrown at them by some Christians, including some of the regular OLO posters. So we can easily see why he/she retaliates, can't we?

I'm a freedom of choice person and this is how I see it. People can choose to be part of the Gay Mardi Gras, or not. People can come and watch, or stay away. People can approve, ignore or criticise. And, as has already been pointed out, people can believe or reject the attendance figures. These are personal decisions which we are all free to make.

But a gay person does not "decide" to be gay, he/she is born that way. And as far as I an concerned, a gay person has just as much right as anyone else to seek fulfillment in life. And if part of that fulfillment includes being part of a Gay Mardi Gras parade, well good on them.

A good many years ago, when such parades were regarded as controversial, my wife and I marched in Perth. We went along to watch and decided to join in. And we found it very enjoyable. Along the way, we saw one of our neighbours, and we smiled and waved at one another. Next time we saw her, she told us that her husband's brother was gay and that they didn't usually mention it, but obviously it was of no significance to us. Right, it wasn't and why should it be? We felt like we'd built a little bridge.

Well Rex, if they are born that way, then they are a genetic defect and
should be treated as handicapped people.
They certainly are handicapped as any organism that cannot reproduce
itself is destined for extinction.
Such organisms in nature are generally considered to be useless and are eliminated.

Hmmmm, interesting.

Bazz: "Well Rex, if they are born that way, then they are a genetic defect and should be treated as handicapped people."

Just pathetic. Such prejudice precludes the possibility of any meaningful conversation on this topic. No wonder some gay people get exasperated by such obvious homophobia.

Watch out everybody, the gays are exaggerating again! Cover your eyes children!

Bugsy put it best.

For my two bob:

If you don't like it, nobody's forcing you to partipate. I reckon Pericles is right when he says the figure exaggerations are about cold hard cash.

Runner - live and let live. They're not doing you any harm. Quite frankly, if you don't like it, it's none of your business what people get up to in their personal lives. Yeah, you can argue they're putting it out there in front of you too much, but I can say the same thing about Christianity.

As for too much sexuality - I reckon this ideal of shielding children from sex is a pretty recent historical phenomenon.
Go back a couple of hundred years, and you'd find people lived much less cossetted lives and children knew what the score was when their parent's bed started creaking.
I'm astonished people get so worked up when children are exposed to sexual messages, but seem pretty lax on the whole violence issue.