The boyfriend and I were in Key West, so we did not go to Gay Days at Disney World, but we have local friends who did. Time magazine has a piece that looks at the event - which began in 1991 - and also the stupidity of homophobes who show up with their children and go ballistic that TEH gays are at the theme park and might damage their precious children. Duh!! The event has been going on for 19 years and you're too stupid to figure it out? Not to mention that pretending that gays don't exist isn't exactly a smart way to educate one's little darlings who will ultimately venture out in to the real world where - God forbid, the horror - they are going to encounter the fact that gays DO exist. Indeed, we are found in all elements of society. It's like the tea tootling parents who overreact and who are vocally anti-alcohol and then end up with the kids that are alcoholics. Do they really think they did something positive for their children? I have three children now ranging in age from 21 to 28 and, yes, they were sheltered in some ways, but we did try to educate them to understand the real world and diversity within society. In any event, here are some highlights from Time:*
Like pretty much every child who walks up Main Street U.S.A. at Disney World for the first time, Alix, 10, and her brother Evan, 11, can barely contain their anticipation. Evan wants to ride Space Mountain. Alix is so excited, she can't even say what she wants to do. She is jumping up and down. It's a typical Disney scene, except that Evan, Alix and their sister Jamie, a desultory 4-year-old shielded from the sun in a stroller, have come to the Magic Kingdom with their two moms. It is the 20th anniversary of Gay Days at Disney, and the whole family has traveled from Hickory Corners, Mich., to celebrate.
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Gay Days is now one of the largest gay-pride events in the world. According to Watermark, a Florida-based gay newspaper that has been covering Gay Days since it started, about 150,000 people attended this June's six-day gathering, which included 17 pool parties, a business expo, a comic-book convention, a film festival, an after-hours trip to a Disney water park (think dance music and guys in very small swimsuits), bobble-head painting and tie-dyeing for the kids, rivers of alcohol (and some other substances) for the adults and, on June 5, the great culmination: 20,000 to 30,000 lesbians, gays and their families and friends descending on Disney World, everyone clad in red shirts to signify their presence.
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How did the event come to rival the pride parades in New York City and San Francisco in terms of attendance? One answer, the answer you would hear from any gay political organization, is that many gay couples now have children.
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Even though Disney has never officially sanctioned Gay Days and has asked employees to treat the first Saturday in June just like any other day, Christian-right groups have scolded the company for doing nothing to stop the event. For eight years after Gay Days began, the Southern Baptist Convention boycotted Disney.
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A former Disney employee who was at the park on June 5 told me that every year, Disney issues refunds or free next-day tickets to angry moms and dads who don't want their kids exposed to gay couples or gay-themed shirts. Some families don't get past Main Street U.S.A. before turning around and taking the monorail back to the parking lots.
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But they are a vanishing minority. Gay Days may be an occasion for gays to overindulge and conservatives to squirm, but Evan, Alix and Jamie are the future: kids with their parents who want the great American vacation, no politics required.
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