Some advice for anyone planning a wedding or large event in Vancouver and hoping for good weather, find out the dates for Pride weekend and make your plans accordingly. It doesnt matter how much rain the city has been experiencing leading up to those days, somehow the sun always shines for the Pride Parade.
Sunshine was the case Sunday as hundreds of thousands of spectators lined the streets of the West End to watch the annual parade, which had a theme this year of Celebrate.
And celebrate they did, despite a post on Twitter last week from Surrey resident and Kwantlen Polytechnic University professor Shinder Purewal to ban the Pride Parade due to its vulgar displays of scantily clad men and women.
The former Surrey-North federal Liberal candidate told the Vancouver Sun, "that does not mean that I dont support same-sex marriage, which I do and voted for, or that I dont support people of different sexual orientation, but for it to be in public is vulgar." In other words, same-sex relationships are OK, so long as theyre hidden. Now there's a guy you want representing you.
Apparently Purewal takes exception to what he calls the open sexuality of the parade, an event he would never take his children to. I'm a big fan of the parade, but I'm also a new grandmother, so after reading Purewals comments, I decided to take a long, hard look, no pun intended, at this year's parade. And at the end of the three-hour long marathon, I came away excited about the day my grandchild will be old enough to attend with me. There was one older gentleman who walked the parade route naked carrying a large inflatable globe of the world, but his look was much more Father Time or aging hippy at Wreck Beach, than vulgar homosexual hedonist. And in fact, his naked stroll caused barely a stir among the parade's spectators.
Coincidently, when I returned to the office Tuesday morning after the long weekend, I received an email from the Vancouver Police Department giving a quick recap of the Celebration of Light fireworks festival, which took place the night before the parade in pretty much the same location. According to the VPD, there were 605 liquor pour-outs, four arrests for public intoxication; 28 liquor seizures; 26 weapons seizures, including three sets of brass knuckles, eight cans of pepper spray, four knives and an ice pick; 26 violation tickets written, two arrests for breach of the peace, 10 drug seizures and one person arrested for an outstanding warrant. Now that's a vulgar display.
On Tuesday morning, I emailed VPD media spokesperson Const. Lindsey Houghton and asked for the stats on violations reported as the result of the Pride Parade. But Houghton told me there was nothing to report. No liquor violations, no public displays of indecency, no weapons seizures.
But I expected nothing less, given the fact the sun warmed the huge crowd, lifting everyone's spirits.
Even in the hours leading up to the parade, the weather was questionable and as we headed towards the West End just before 11 a.m. it was through scattered showers. But then, as if by divine intervention, perhaps by the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, the sun began to peak through the clouds and a rainbow appeared in front of us over English Bay. And while our response wasn't quite that of the Double Rainbow Guy, we were still pretty awestruck by the significance. And so while some might argue the Pride Parade is a vulgar display of hedonism, that brightly coloured rainbow in the sky looked to me like a sign somebody up there was giving a public seal of approval.
Twitter @sthomas10
