ProtestShooter.com - San Francisco Gay Pride Parade 2005

In 2005 the big theme was anger. Bush was back in office. Their marriages had been thrown out in the courts. Many states were putting laws on the books to outlaw gay marriage. In many ways they were worse off than a couple of years ago, and compared to the victory dance that was 2004 this was a major, major letdown.

In addition things were starting to get ugly in Iraq and you see more vocal and more angry anti-war protesters including the first appearance of ANSWER (at least in my photos - if they were at earlier parades it was in a much smaller scale).

But all in all, just a lot less energy than last year. It doesn't entirely show in the pictures, but the whole mood was a heck of a lot less celebratory.

I just found it odd that she put "Proud" in quotes.

So far, so good. PFLAG always gets a lot of applause.

One of the things that's been interesting going through these old shots is that there are so many URLs on the signs that you can answer the question "Who the hell is that?" (She was one of the Grand Marshals in 2005 - I probably have a picture of her a couple of pictures over, but I like the sign).

Gay K-9.

If Newton had any idea he'd have just forgotten the whole gravity thing as a bad idea. There are lots of naked and semi-naked people of both genders at the parade. I haven't shown a ton of them because that's not really what this is about, but I couldn't resist here. Although you might want to ask youself if your kids really need to see this.

Our by now good friends at Colage - fewer Queer Spawn shirts this year, and the same design as last year.

Pretty much the same deal as always.

I really fail to understand why people think the Pride Parade is kid friendly but yet there's always a bunch of local schools and daycare that show up to promote how progressive they are as well as a ton of kids in the audience. I'm not saying the basic concept of gay pride is bad - it's the naked people, and the nasty language on the signs, and the people in leather beating each other, and all the other craziness that goes along with the parade.

True.

Interestingly many politicians were still trying to attach themselves to the marriage movement even though things were starting to look pretty bleak but it wasn't as universal as last year.

More of the same.

Very few of the folks with the licenses this year which is why I'm using one that's not really in focus - it was pretty much my only choice.

Still a fair amount of dressup, but not so much holding licenses as it becoming almost a fashion statement.

Ayup.

The hotels had some union trouble that year. I'm not sure what happened with this - it went on for months.

First time ANSWER was here. Notice the Che shirt. Those red signs are ANSWER signs. The yellow one reads "BUSH is the symptom CAPITALISM is the disease REVOLUTION is the cure"

Oddly enough that's a Gwen sign on the right - she was a murdered transgender teen - but it has an ANSWER url at the bottom. As far as I know they had nothing to do with, oh, actually prosecuting her murderers who were convicted a year before this. I could find no connection between the two on the web. As far as I can tell they're basically just trying to use her to make themselves look good by association with a local martyr.

Lots and lots of anti-Bush stuff, and much larger/louder. Notice the guy with the loudspeaker.

Love the face on the baby to the right - the text is "You Wanna Cut off WHAT?"

Classy. The odd thing is that male circumcision is pretty rare now in this area - the hospitals don't do it unless you request in advance - so I'm not sure why they're all of a sudden so concerned.