“All of these supposedly heterosexual fashion editors at GQ and Esquire say Orlando Bloom or David Beckham is the best-dressed man. But what they’re really saying is that they fancy them, because all they’re wearing is jeans and a T-shirt. I don’t think they hate me because I’m gay. I think they hate me because I’m not beautiful.”

“HIV is still the biggest threat to gay men in America. That’s why our government is content to do so little about it. Pres. George W. Bush’s big plan for AIDS involves Africa, not Eighth Avenue, remember. In fact, the loudest noise Congress has made about AIDS in the past four years has involved de-funding prevention programs that do not hew to biblical ideas about sex and marriage. Thanks to the good Christians running your government, public school students are getting less safe-sex education than they were ten years ago. It’s as if Reagan got that third term after all.”

“In the eyes of party boys and lesbians who just wanna have fun, Pride Day long ago sold some major swaths of its raucous soul – to corporate interests and their ubiquitous logos; to the thousands of suburbanites who hog all the front-row spaces on the parade route; to the shadow of AIDS; to the Toronto cops, who keep making everybody put their clothes back on. But in the past year or two, and even more so this year, the slouch away from the outrageous has become a bit of a lurch, as Pride Day – or Pride, as its organizers now insist it be called – makes way for a slew of family- and community-oriented events that have elbowed their way into the week-long party.”