New York's annual Gay Pride parade is by far the most entertaining of the various marches which shut down Fifth Avenue for a day. To appreciate the full flavour, you really have to start exploring the night before, in the West Village and Chelsea, where thousands of gays and lesbians pour in from the rest of the country and, for once, heterosexual couples have a sense of what it must feel like to be in a minority.
In the balmy summer night, the streets become something like a 1960s lovefest, with the cheerful gay rainbow flags waving from every shop, apartment block and bar. At almost every corner, there are couples making out and stretch limos cruising the streets.
This year, as last, the weather was gorgeous, and the sun was hammering the tarmac as 600,000 spectators lined Fifth Avenue to watch the 300,000 marchers kick off from 56th Street at noon. Two hours earlier, just a block away on Sixth Avenue, a middle-aged vagrant had been arrested after shooting a man who had asked him to stop shouting. He missed his target but, four bullets later, managed to hit a tourist. "He verbally abused me," he grumbled to the cameras as he was bundled away by police, who later confirmed he was carrying a semiautomatic gun and 26 rounds of ammunition.
This being Manhattan, the episode made no impact on proceedings as out roared Dykes On Bikes, an 80-strong group of large, leather-waistcoated lesbians astride Harley-Davidsons, all polished to perfection. One, raising her leather cap to the crowd, nearly came unseated as she hit a pothole, but she wrestled her bike back under control and the crowd roared its support. Then the Gay Men's Chorus, wearing turquoise T-shirts and black knickerbockers, skipped quickly behind, holding big cardboard musical notes and singing their hearts out.
A pink Cadillac bearing several feather-decked drag queens boasting improbable cleavages followed, pursued by a rumbling London double-decker bearing the sign "Living with HIV and fighting with Pride". Behind it, a group of grey, middle-aged men and women wearing khakis and sensible shoes strode briskly, carrying homemade signs declaring "Parents and Proud"; "We love our children just the way they are" and "We are family".
Two lesbians, arm in arm, trotted past, holding a placard declaring "Just Married 16/5/98", while the New York Police Department Band thundered just behind them, with the Gay Officers Action League (GOAL) in tow.
By 2 p.m. they were still coming. Another London bus transported several elderly, bearded gays representing Senior Action In A Gay Environment (SAGE), waving their rainbows from the top deck. "We're gay, we're grey, we're proud!" they called. "Spice up your life with SAGE!" cried another.
Every immigrant group seemed to be represented: Puerto Ricans Against AIDS, Polish Gay Men, Latinos For Equal Rights, Hispanics With HIV; there was even a group from Finland, sporting black leather caps and, to much whistling from the crowd, bravely exposing naked buttocks to the midday sun.
A kilted pipe band tootled past, playing Marie's Wedding as the New York Renegades, also dressed from head to toe in black leather, pulled each other along on dog leads, accompanied by supporters, in various states of undress, from the S&M Dominant And Submissive Love Society.
From the safety of a white Chevy bedecked with flowers, one woman flashed open her waistcoat and began to fondle her two glistening globes, offering them to the crowd, which hooted back its appreciation. A brace of drag queens, one in sequined seven-inch platforms, the other on rollerblades and dressed as the Statue of Liberty, whizzed past. "Closets are for clothes," they yelled.
There seemed to be less nudity this year than last, and the more risque participants usually save their flashing until the parade has reached the less shockable environs of Greenwich Village.
A group of Christian Gay Men balancing inflatable fish on their heads and armed with giant water pistols were preceded by four grinning gay priests. Meanwhile, my favourites, the Gay Rodeo Association ("Love your chaps") was led by a rider in full cowboy regalia on a splendid stallion, followed by a dung attendant.
The most applause went to groups fighting AIDS, including one float which carried a giant syringe and medicine bottle, with a band which marched silently in black T-shirts and bearing signs proclaiming "0,000,000 cured". The next loudest cheers were for an eight-year-old girl. In one hand she was clutching her homosexual father and in the other a hastily crayoned poster saying: "It's okay to be gay."