Live and let live.
All 11 to 18-year-olds have parents.

Scheduling the parade for 9/11 wasn’t a super great idea.

Including a children’s drag component was a terrible idea.

It doesn’t take more than a moment’s worth of thought to realize that both are inflammatory to people with differing points of view. Picking a fight isn’t “solidarity” and stirring the pot isn’t “support.”

The rejoinder is “we have the right to do these things,” and that’s probably true. But these things are still stupid and unwise.

Mate thinks that it is fine for teens and pre-teens to go onstage if they want to, and that it depends on the child. I agree, but I also do not think that many of them would be comfortable going on stage. Thiis partly because they are so uncertain about themselves through their teens and into their 20s, 40s and 40s. Also, in our society, there is a significant minority of people who would come out of the woodwork to torment those kids. That may be a far larger statement about the ugliness of that group of people than about the kids who would be brave enough to go on stage.

The loudest voices expressing outrage over anything not heterosexual are in my view likely repressing homosexual tendencies that they are afraid to examine within themselves. It’s always amusing when the most outraged conservatives get outed. E.g Larry Craig.

Corporate America is trying to embrace gay people because Corporate America has recognized that gay people make up a sizable portion of the public at large and the pool of employees. Only with a radical right wing revolution will gays be pushed back into the closet. That would only be one aspect of a radical right wing revolution that we should all fear.

So, that’s my view of a tempest largely in a teapot.