Mardi Gras in the City

In Sydney, the big day for the Mardi Gras parades is Saturday, so yesterday we went in to downtown and joined the thousands of people lining the streets for the biggest parade of them all: the LGBTQ sponsored Gay and Lesbian Pride Mardi Gras parade.

The first parade was in 1978, where even though the march had obtained permission, 53 people were arrested that evening.  The newspapers the next morning published the names of those who had been arrested which lead to many of them being outed to their friends and families and even losing their jobs, since apparently homosexuality was considered a crime in New South Wales until 1984.  Since then it has been an annual march for gay rights, and is now a tourist attraction for the city that brings in a lot of money.

Last night was definitely an interesting experience, and I'm told is one of those things you have to do if you're here...But mostly it was a vivid and flamboyant celebration of the freedom to love and questions about when Australia will begin to allow gay marriage, as so many other countries already have.  It was disappointing that the US couldn't be celebrated as one of these countries either.

Overall, there were a lot of people with not a lot of clothes on.. both in the parade and in the crowd...