A Straight Pride Parade?

Seriously, I just had someone send me an invitation for a straight pride parade....

WTF?

I'm going to be honest and admit that I didn't even read the email, it was just so silly to me that I didn't even read it.  I'm not saying that straights shouldn't be proud of the fact that they're straight (Um, hello?  I'm straight...ish.  I mean, I'd be gay for Jennifer Aniston IN A HEARTBEAT and I think two guys together is unbelievably HOT-which is where the "ish" comes from), but I think that people are missing the point of the gay pride parade.  It's about more than couples and individuals showing that they're gay, it's showing support for people to love and live as they want without the religious convictions or ideals of others being forced upon them.  It's about expressing pride in yourself in an era that still wants gays, bisexuals and transgenders to stay in the closet hiding, unless of course they're performing on stage, well then...it's okay.

I liken the gay pride parade to the Civil Rights Movement that blacks and those that supported them, took decades ago during the 1950s and 1960s.  It's a shout, a proclamation of "We're here!  We will love who we want!  We're not going away!  You can't make us!  Give us our rights, our freedoms!  Stop your hatred, your intolerance, your bashing and your soul-killing rhetoric!"  I always smile warmly whenever I hear of a gay pride parade and I've marched in a few, or rather, like this year, rolled in a few with my wheelchair, because it reminds me that we all have the responsibility to fight for equality, regardless of if we agree with it or not.  I remember when I did a paper in college (Bethune Cookman) about the fact that there were some people who fought in the Civil War who didn't believe that blacks were equal with whites as others did, but they didn't believe in slavery (they believed in equality, but didn't agree with the the totality of the fight) and there were those who marched for Civil Rights who didn't believe that blacks had the capacity to learn like whites did, that we would never be as smart as them (Suck my 182 IQ score on that one!  Marilyn Savant scored a 228), but that we still had the right to learn and live as equally as they did.

That's the way I see the gay pride parade, it's a parade that celebrates love and equality for EVERYONE.

So a straight pride parade?  How is that out of the ordinary at all?  Why would that even be needed?  No one is trying to prevent straight couples from being able to marry (although some of them should be...I mean...really), no one is telling straight couples that they weren't born straight or that they're abominations and God doesn't love them because of who they choose to love (which is a bunch of malarky! Do people just not READ the Bible or something?), so why would they need a parade to march in?

It angered me a little when I saw it and I promptly wrote back this person (who is now deleted and blocked from my email address) and told them that they didn't have to approve of who I chose to call friend and who I chose to fight for, but they had to respect my wishes on not sending my anything that I found offensive (this wasn't their first time-I was called a f** hag by this person and told that I'd be chained with the rest of them and burned in hell-probably should have blocked her then).  So maybe someone else, who is a little more understanding can explain to me the whole straight pride parade thing, because I'm just not getting it.