Vivre la difference?

An onlooker reviewed last night's DiversCite Montreal Pride parade in today's paper: "It was great. It wasn't too sexual, so it was good for kids, too."

Yes, Montreal's parade showed that we're finally learning to behave.

There were proper drag queens waving from convertibles, there were shirtless boys, there was a huge turnout of sportsies promoting next year's first OutGames. It was nice.

For the first time, the parade was held at night. Organizers took flack for that decision -- but the gruelling temperature dropped and the atmosphere was relaxed.

There were no homo parent contingents -- the kiddies had to be put to bed, although some olderlings did make a faeryland appearance. There were also no double-D exposed breasts -- surgically implanted or otherwise -- no streaking, no playing with the dark in the dark, and the closest we got to truly raunchy was the AIDS group Sero Zero's watergun pumping images and flashes of words like "Willy" and "Big Kahuna." (The condoms were -- yuck! -- lubricated.)

Michael Hendricks, one half of Quebec's tireless gay marriage fighting pair, announced he was retiring his wedding tux (we're just as sick of it as he is) and, yet again, parroted to the mainstream media what too many thoughtless homos are saying: "We always said we'd stop making trouble once gays and lesbians had full equality. Well, now we have it."

It was all nice.

Wait -- a small group of very skinnies walked with paper skull masks, confusing everyone (turns out Lipo-Action wants Medicare to cover the costs of treating the physical side effects of AIDS drugs). And the Anti-Capitalist Ass Pirates shambled their zombie way through.

Finally. But not nearly enough.

Many of us -- me included -- like to say that Pride's been overwhelmed by the nice people, by the middle class and the goodie-goodies. But really, Pride is an event that belongs only to those who take it.