I have no idea what this means. It's inscrutable on so many levels.

Via Tech Master Brian G., who reports that the peaches were delicious.

You might want to work on your reading comprehension skills. Between blogs and E-mails I have noticed at least 75 people who read my post, none of whom except you think I'm against marriage altogether. I think marriage is great. I want to get married someday. I have just stopped blogging and writing op-eds (Tuesday's San Jose Mercury-News is the last one) in response to the "marriage equality" movement.

In the interest of reading comprehension, here's what Benkof wrote on his blog:

It is with great sadness that I announce that I feel I must withdraw from openly supporting man-woman marriage in the United States. I recently learned quite a bit of disturbing information that makes it impossible for me to continue supporting a movement I no longer respect. I have not yet decided when or even if I will write about why I’m ending my participation in this debate.

Visitors to Benkof's blog will now find a blank page.

It is with great sadness that I announce that I feel I must withdraw from openly supporting man-woman marriage in the United States. I recently learned quite a bit of disturbing information that makes it impossible for me to continue supporting a movement I no longer respect. I have not yet decided when or even if I will write about why I’m ending my participation in this debate.

Now that’s really weird. He doesn’t say what the “disturbing information” is—could be cancer, a funding scandal, a realization that he is the gay analog of Alan Keyes—only that he stopped supporting marriage of men and women. And as I was writing this post, his entire blog went offline. Poof, he’s gone.

Via Andrew Sullivan.

Alabama Attorney General Troy King, a conservative Republican Christian who has called homosexuality the 'downfall of society,' has been caught with his pants down--literally--in a gay sex scandal. King was reportedly nabbed having sex with a male assistant by his wife, Paige King, in the couple’s own bed.

This could be a hoax. It's been hours since this hit the web and none of the newspapers in Alabama have anything. Then again, King's record, ethics-wise, isn't spotless. And, you know, he's a Republican.

Didn't your overbearing mother and emotionally distant father teach you to clean up after yourself? The aftermath of the Pride Parade made it look like it was a retarded McDonald's employee parade. There were slurpee cups, burger wrappers, and gay-ass streamers everywhere. I thought fairies were supposed to be clean? It's wrong to stereotype homos, and you have definitely proven that, you dirty fags!

(Someone had to say it, and I'm glad it was someone as eloquent as Anonymous.)

Stormont Health committee chair Iris Robinson last night accused her political rivals of twisting her comments on homosexuality and denied she believed it was a mental disorder.…

Mrs. Robinson said: “People have attempted to suggest that I indicated that homosexuality was a mental health issue. Nothing could be further from the truth. What I did say was homosexuality, like all sin, is an abomination.

Thank you for clearing that up, Mrs. Robinson.

More photos after the jump.
There's also TONS of excellent Pride 08 photos in the Stranger's Flickr pool.

^{Pride rose photo by It's Mark Mitchell.}

[L]egalizing gay marriage is good for sports teams. Spain did it a few years back, and wham, they win the Euro for the first time since 1964. Canada did it just before the 2006 Winter Olympics, and bingo, they had their best-ever medal haul. South Africa legalized gay marriage in 2006, and won the Rugby World Cup the following year. Massachusetts gave same-sex couples the right to wed a few years ago—and ask Red Sox and Celtic fans about how nicely things have gone for their teams since. For all those folks who insist that God’s punishment for gay marriage will be obvious, so far the evidence is, um, lacking. The evidence for the opposite is growing.

If California upholds gay marriage at the ballot box in November, I predict championships for USC football, UCLA basketball, the Los Angeles Lakers and the Anaheim Angels — all within short order.

Via Sullivan.

(Via Deadspin.)

Gay No. 2: It's the recession. The first thing to go are the gay floats.

I'm not as down on today's parade as Christopher seems to be. It was quicker and tighter this year (fewer looooong gaps between contingents), and the energy was great despite the heat. Yes, it would've been nice to see more floats and bigger floats—this is the second year in a row that we've offered cash prizes to give people some incentive to pull bigger, better floats together—but we weren't wanting for potential winners at the end of the parade. (We even had to debate who to give the awards to, so there were more than three possibilities—but there was no "Bear, Bath, and Beyond" this year, no twenty-foot-tall pink poodle.) I rather liked this traditional—and patriotic!—float design...

More of that, please. And a lot of work went into the Julia's/La Faux float—oh, and check out the boy lifting his leg at the top right.

Much more of that, please.

But here's what we'd really like to see if we keep the awards going: Some entries pulled together groups of friends—not goo-goo community organizations, not AIDS alliances, not the Committe to Reelect Christine Gregoire. If some creative types got together and created a big, funny, interesting float just for the hell of it—just for pleasure, not to promote their missions or raise awareness or scrounge up votes—they could walk away with the $2,000 first prize.

And here's something we never, ever want to see in the parade again:

That is a rolling billboard for a condominium—because, uh, gay people, you see, sometimes live in condos, so... uh... here's our rolling condo billboard in the Pride Parade! No one in our group was rude enough to boo, but we decided that next year and we're bringing paint guns and we're going to shoot up any rolling billboards that come down the street.

Oh, and I realize this is heresy and shit, but I'd like to see less of... Dykes on Bikes. You rock, ladies (and gents), your bikes roar, but remember that old show business adage: Always leave 'em wanting more.

Folks were partying in the fountain at Seattle Center immediately after the parade—hell, they're probably still partying at the fountain now. Hey, remember how people used to argue that "the community" didn't want the parade downtown or the rally at Seattle Center? I'm glad that's all over.

Oh, the parade may be over but our memories will last forever—as will these pride beads, all of which will spend eternity in area landfills.