Differing Gods
This is Pride Fest weekend in Harrisburg, and for the first time, regional gays and lesbians held a Pride Parade along Front Street, ending at the Pride Fest site in Riverfront Park just north of Shipoke. I'm never crazy about the festival being so close to my neighborhood, not because of the nature of the events, which are pretty tame, but because of the religious extremists the festival never fails to attract. My worry is that a more unstable follower of these churches might decide to commit violence. All the nonsense about "Hate the sin, love the sinner" aside, a lot of the Christian right preaching and denunciation of gays sounds a lot like vehement Nazi hate speech toward Jews in the 1930s.
I walked up with my daughter to watch some of the parade. Though somewhat disorganized, it was loud and exhuberant, even including some cross-dressing beauty queens riding in convertibles. Some of the marchers, like the ones in the photo above, were determined to take back the God issue. And while most of the protesters were as dedicated to their own misguided Christianity as one might expect, a couple did look like reluctant draftees, somewhat embarassed to be holding those signs. Couldn't say 'no' to the preacher, I guess.