Relax. Rose Parade gay marriage float is not the apocalypse

By Robin Abcarian

Dec. 31, 2013 12:14 PM PT

There go the gays again.

It’s not enough that they have the right to marry in 18 states. It’s not enough that they can openly serve in the military after being forced to live in the shadows.

Now they have to go and rub their gay family values in America’s face: On Wednesday, before a live crowd of about 700,000 and a television audience of millions, two dudes will plight their troth live on a Rose Parade float called “Love Is the Best Protection,” sponsored by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation.

And you can kiss your heterosexual marriages goodbye. … NOT!!

Come on, silly people.

Gay marriage is the civil rights movement of the 21st century. If the Mormon-dominated state of Utah is now allowing gay couples to marry, do you really think your prejudice is going to stop the tide of history? Do you really want to be today’s moral equivalent of the racists who fought for segregated water fountains, segregated schools and segregated neighborhoods?

If you do, you will love the Facebook page Boycott the 2014 Rose Parade, which had more than 5,600 likes on Tuesday morning. You will be comforted by the many words of bigotry that pass for religious values:

“If the same folks who have supported Phil Robertson’s biblical stand on marriage against A&E decide they’ll spend New Year’s morning at sunrise services instead of watching the parade, and people avoid going to the parade, that could spell the end of this tradition,” the page says. “They’ve already destroyed the Boy Scouts. Let’s NOT let them destroy the Rose Parade.”

A commenter named Angela Wingenroth, who identified herself as a stay-at-home mother, vowed not to allow her daughters to watch the parade:

“We don’t care what the states say about it -- God is clear that this isn’t right and I will NOT have this SHOVED DOWN MY CHILDREN’S THROATS!! The intolerance is theirs. They will not accept peoples’ objections to their lifestyle -- you HAVE to accept that it’s not just ok, but GOOD or you’re a bigot! If they want to get ‘married,’ that’s their choice, but my kids don’t need to see it.”

Putting aside the twisted logic of accusing someone of intolerance because they are intolerant of your intolerance, I think I can put Wingenroth’s fears to rest.

As it turns out, the gay marriage float, sponsored by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation is not a “featured float” with microphones. Most people who see it in person will only hear the Indigo Girls song “Power of Two” emanating from its speakers.

As for the actual wedding ceremony? It will be on camera for just 15 seconds, when the float passes in front of the KTLA-TV cameras, at precisely 9:44:50 a.m. Pacific time.

At that moment, Aubrey Loots, 42, and Danny Leclair, 45, who own a chain of Los Angeles hair salons, will be joined in holy matrimony by the Rev. Alfreda “Freda” Lanoix. A lesbian couple, Sharon Raphael and Mina Meyer, who have been together for 42 years and married in California in 2008, will serve as witnesses.

In other words, Ms. Wingenroth, blink and you and your daughters will miss the wedding.

(However, if you want to see the float early on in the parade, tune in to HGTV, which is positioned near the start of the parade route. The healthcare foundation’s float is scheduled to be on HGTV for a whole minute or so.)

Oh, and here’s yet another sign of the marriage apocalypse: AIDS Healthcare Foundation spokesman Ged Kenslea told me Tuesday that the AHF’s proposal for a gay wedding float was originally turned down by Tournament of Roses officials because the float sponsored by Farmers Insurance was already planning to have three weddings. Farmers had opened its Rose Parade wedding contest to gays couples after the U.S. Supreme Court in June essentially reversed Proposition 8, which banned gay marriage in California.

Tournament of Roses officials didn’t want two floats performing weddings: “They have a strict rule about not doing two of anything,” Kenslea said.

A few months ago, Farmers decided to go with a different theme: honoring teachers.

So the Tournament of Roses called the AHF to let it know its gay marriage float was back in business.

There is simply no better way to illustrate the country’s advances in gay civil rights than to celebrate a same-sex marriage on the first day of the new year atop some of the most sentimental turf in America: a Rose Parade float.

If you don’t want to watch that, maybe you should just go duck hunting.

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