Keetmanshoop, in the southern part of Namibia, near the gay-friendly South Africa, is marking the inauguration of Ada Ma/Hao (We stand together), a new project advocating for equal rights for gender minorities in southern Namibia.

According to Jacobus Witbooi, sexual minorities coordinator for the Czech NGO People in Need, which is sponsoring the march, Ada Ma/Hao will focus on “enhancing empowerment of marginalized sexual minorities in areas of human rights and HIV/AIDS.”

Sodomy is illega in Namibia, though LGBT rights groups like Sister Namibia and Rainbow Project operate freely in the country’s major cities. The last sodomy case was tried in the late 80s.

As an added treat for everyone, Pentecostal preachers Lou Engle and Michael Brown have announced plans to “surround” the Pride events with a hoped-for thousand flock members in order to “reach out to gays and lesbians with the compassion of Jesus.”

If you’re not reading carefully, it almost sounds like a nice thing.

After all, there are many churches that genuinely do reach out to the LGBT community in love and equality. If I were a member of such I church, I would be pretty sick to death by now of the loonbats who have turned “Christian tolerance” into something you have to put quotation marks around half the time.

(Maybe we could use another phrase for the loonbat churches? Christian toolery? No, you’d still need quotation marks around “Christian.” )

Engle and Brown say they will not “harass or intimidate” anyone – unless you count the part where they plan to surround the entire park with people in T-shirts reading “God Has a Better Way.”

They also say that the rally is not “mean-spirited.” Except, of course, for the part where it is.

A thorough story by the Box Turtle Bulletin reports that the last time Brown and his friends showed up at Charlotte Pride, many participants felt intimidated.

And while Brown and Engle claim their group will simply be praying and singing, last time the praying happened through a powerful sound system.

Brown and Engle are openly hoping that the Charlotte Pride protest will have “a ripple effect around the nation” and begin the process of turning back gay rights.

A quick hunt around the Web probably won’t get you any more eager to invite Brown over to Sunday dinner. His open invitation to participants on the God Has a Better Way website features a video full of that creepy rhetorical technique in which the so-very-moral speaker has to smile and even laugh while ticking off the things that have outraged him to show you just how crazy the world has gotten.

Brown is also a big fan of the “gays are taking away our right to discriminate against them” talking points. And, really, I have to give credit to whoever came up with those, if only for the mental hoops one has to leap through to get there. Way to rationalize.

Brown and Engle insist that – in spite of some occasionally violent “spiritual warrior” rhetoric – their whole mission is about compassion. Because, you see, they would like for their churches to be a safe place for people to come and wrestle with unwanted homosexual feelings.

(Any wrestlers you’re thinking of in particular, fellas?)

Brown and Engle are of course within their rights to protest. I just wish they’d be less disingenuous about their reasons for doing so.

Personal to Michael Brown and Lou Engle:
C’mon, fellas – you don’t really think you’re going to win anybody at Pride over to your scary brand of Hellfire religion. Just admit that.

I’m sure your histrionics might draw a few frightened new followers from elsewhere – people who need harsh black-and-white rules of punishment and reward in order to feel like the world is safe and makes sense.

And you’ll win a few more people who are in such a miserable and low place that they need to pick some group of people they can feel superior to. It’s the same place bigots always come from.

But you’re not actually going to win over anyone from the LGBT community and you know it. If you don’t know it, you are the dumbest missionaries on the face of the earth. You don’t win people over to your cause by being nasty and scary and telling them how awful they are.

Haven’t you ever dealt with anyone who’s really trying to convert you to something? The first rule is to be super, super nice. Some even err on the side of creepy-nice.

If you really wanted to win people over to Jesus at Pride, you’d bring actual compassion, and willing ears. Not to mention a few cold drinks. You’d maybe learn a little something about the people you’re trying to preach to, do your best to understand their hopes, fears, and needs, and get to know them as real, individual people.

But that could really wreck your afternoon of one-size-fits-all bigotry and fear, so you won’t.

Please, just admit that you hope to make yourselves feel better by making some Pride participants feel bad. Just admit that you’re doing this because you think you might get an intimidating enough group together to make people think twice about holding a Charlotte Pride again next year.

Come to think of it, I am suddenly very interested in hitting Charlotte pride next year. I hope your little show will inspire a few thousand other people to feel the same way.

Vice Mayor Larry Small has issued a personal letter of support for PrideFest, which will include a parade and interfaith religious service Sunday.

Mayor Lionel Rivera often issues proclamations for city events, but has withheld his support for PrideFest because the event hosts same-sex commitment ceremonies and he opposes gay marriage.

Small, a self-described conservative Republican, says gays and lesbians are members of the community who pay taxes, own businesses.

Colorado Springs is the home of Wil Perkins, author of a 1992 ballot issue that barred Colorado cities from passing laws to protect gays from discrimination. The U.S. Supreme Court overturned the law.

I was five years old and bound for kindergarten in the fall.

For my birthday in May of that year I received my first wooden Louisville Slugger bat and a Franklin baseball glove.

By June I had suffered my first significant sports injury. I was catching a pickup game in the neighborhood and caught a split lip when the batter threw my first Louisville Slugger.

I remember well that event in the summer of 1969 because I drank milkshakes for two days.

And I remember gathering with my family to watch Apollo 11 landing on the moon, a live transmission from the moon to our television set.

My parents told me the moon landing would change the world, would change my life in ways I could not imagine.

I don’t remember anyone that summer mentioning Stonewall or that the riots outside that New York club would change the world, would change lives, would change my life in ways I could not imagine.

My parents probably saw a news report that Judy Garland had died, but they probably did not hear or read the short reports about the six nights of rioting. They were a long way from Greenwich Village and a current issue of The New York Times or Village Voice.

My parents, like many young Midwestern parents living on tomato soup and tuna casserole in their first suburban home, probably would not have quite grasped the meaning of the headline in the New York Daily News — “Homo nest raided. Queen bees are stinging mad.”

Stonewall took about 15 years or more to impact me and my family, but the event, with its long-lasting after-shocks, did influence my life in far more ways than Apollo 11’s landing on the moon.

When I came out, I came out into a community that, forged in Stonewall, had rioted and rebelled, protested and pushed, marched and rallied at capitols in most states and on the National Mall.

When I came out, I came out into a community that, following Stonewall, felt liberated and proclaimed pride. Think about Allen Ginsberg’s comment about the gay men he saw on Christopher Street after Stonewall — “They’ve lost that wounded look that fags all had 10 years ago.”

When I came out, I came out to friends and family aware and awakened by the modern movement that Stonewall spurred.

From Stonewall came gay power and from gay power came gay pride. And from gay pride the community learned to use its power, to build influence, to force change — social change, cultural change, political change.

Now, years after coming out, I realize the Stonewall riots even made possible my day-to-day domestic tranquility —though not yet equality — that my partner and I enjoy with our neighbors and co-workers.

Perhaps the most rebellious of readers might think this a sad comment, but I realize too that Stonewall helped pave the way for young gay Midwestern parents to start out like my parents — to be living happily in the summer of 2009 on tomato soup and tuna casserole and raising their 5-year-old daughter in their first suburban home.

My memories of 1969 are of baseball and new sneakers for school, learning to never talk to strangers and watching a goofy new show about “The Brady Bunch,” and finding my way to North Elementary School and thinking about walking on the moon.

My memories of 1969 are not of the Stonewall riots, or news of the riots, or talk of the riots. Years would pass before I would hear of Stonewall and even then I had to struggle to understand the concept of police harassment — because Stonewall had already forced some reform.

Stonewall is nowhere in my child’s memory of 1969, but Stonewall, that event that went unnoticed in the small Neff household that year, changed my life and the lives of so many others born then and born after.

Thank you, Stonewall generation.

And happy pride.

Konrady had travelled to Omaha as a volunteer for the Human Rights Campaign. She had been walking along the parade route passing out stickers when she saw Crilly’s float. The man had a rainbow colored wagon with a banner on it saying “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ Our Lord.”

Konrady was attacked after she threw several stickers with the HRC emblematic equal sign on them into Crilly’s float.

“He had me in a head lock and I was kind of flailing,” she said. “I’m a pacifist through and through, but this dude just attacked me.”

Crilly was arrested for assault following the incident. As news spread of the event, parade goers flocked to the HRC’s booth, which signed up 159 new members following Konrady’s attack.

Baker has many talents. A vexillographer (”that’s a flag maker darling,” he explained) who worked over  to reinvent the state flags with rainbow patterns and created several mile-long rainbow flags for various gay pride events, Baker is as out-spoken and quick-witted as he is passionate and dedicated to the gay rights movement. Dressed up partly for show and partly to make a stand, Baker is a one-of a-kind personality.

A  long-time activist and supporter of many causes, he created the rainbow flag in 1978 for the 1978 San Francisco Gay and Lesbian Freedom Day parade.  Using his experience from making banners for anti-war demonstrations and other protests, Baker knew the moment he created the flag that it would change his life forever.

Gilbert in front of the Stonewall Bar following the Drag March.

“Flags equal power; they are an exchange of ideas, an action,” Gilbert said when asked why he chose to make a flag. “When you put a flag up, you’re showing power. Flags are greater than a symbol.”

Wanting to avoid using the pink triangle, a symbol he explained was thrust on homosexuals as a label by the Nazis, Baker created the rainbow flag to spread a world-wide message.

“You can’t design a flag. It’s torn from the soul of the people,” said Baker. “[The flag] was an instant thing. I just knew it was right.”

Gilbert chose to use a rainbow because its symbolism “is forever,” representing the spectrum of sexuality and ties to nature.

Each color of the original eight-color rainbow was assigned a specific meaning by Baker. Pink stood for sexuality, red for life, orange for healing, yellow for sunlight, green for nature, turquoise for magic/art, indigo for serenity/harmony, and violet for spirit.

“Well, a flag has to have a meaning, and [the symbolism of each color] gave it more depth,” said Baker. “They’re really beautiful and powerful.”

Baker, originally from Kansas, began sewing after he left the army in 1972. The self-proclaimed “seam master of all time,” Baker began creating his own outfits due to lack of funds and wanting to construct outfits as fabulous as Bowie’s and the Stones’.

After leaving the army, Gilbert also participated in many anti-Vietnam protests, using his sewing skills to make banners. He soon became involved with gay activism, which eventually led him to creating the rainbow flag.

“Everyone knew I loved to sew, so they asked me to make something,” said Baker. “People thought I was brilliant, wild and doing a good thing.”

Baker put to rest rumors that he created a rainbow flag in honor of Judy Garland’s “Somewhere over the Rainbow” from the Wizard of Oz.

“I came from the Streisand generation. She was all about not conforming and not being a victim,” Gilbert explained, the opposite of what Garland stood for. “She was a tragic woman who rose from her abuse,” Gilbert said about Garland, something he said the gay movement related to during the Stonewall Movement. His generation was all about fighting the system and not being persecuted, like Streisand.

“It was all about ‘She’s a Rainbow’ by the Stones, not ‘Over the Rainbow,’” added in Baker with a laugh.

Though the flag has undergone changes over the years, from changing from eight colors to six to accommodate the availability of resources and colors, to being used by businesses and advertisers to try and draw in a gay audience despite not advocating for their rights, Baker is still proud of the flag’s message.

“It is exploited,” said Baker. “But I can’t do anything about that,” he added with a shrug.

Much like the diverse and exuberant crowd gathered that slightly rainy night for the Drag March, the rainbow flag is constantly changing and bringing something new to Baker.

“I learn every day more about the rainbow flag,” he said. “It’ll change, but that’s natural. The idea of it will endure.”

The New York Times reports that Solis, who helped found the House of Representative’s Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Caucus when she was in Congress, was outraged and wrote an email to the department.

The New Delhi parade passed near the Delhi High Court, which is reviewing a law that prohibits gay sex – and can punish it with up to 10 years in prison.

Law Minister Veerappa Moily also said he would soon meet with two other important government ministers to discuss changing the country’s anti-homosexuality laws, according to Sunday’s Hindustan Times newspaper.

Gay rights activists said momentum was on their side.

“This piece of legislation makes no sense,” said Ponni Arasu, 25, a law student and a march organizer. “You cannot deny people their basic civil rights.

Sex between people of the same gender has been illegal in India since a British colonial era law included it as a forbidden sexual act “against the order of nature.”

Rights activists say the law sanctions discrimination and marginalizes the gay community. Health experts say the law discourages safe sex and has been a hurdle in fighting HIV and AIDS. Roughly 2.5 million Indians have HIV.

Supporters of the law, which include leaders of the Hindu right, argue that gay sex should remain illegal and that open homosexuality is out of step with the values of this deeply traditional country.

On Sunday, activists took to the streets of the southern cities of Chennai and Bangalore and the capital, New Delhi. Marching bands blared horns and pounded drums while men wearing saris and women waving rainbow flags chanted for their rights.

The parades came a year after India’s first large gay pride march, a celebration that supporters say would have been unthinkable just a few years ago.

“It was the first very overt, celebratory and positive images of the community,” said Leslie Esteves, 33, an organizer in New Delhi. “This is a confident community that has survived and thrived despite the shadow of criminalization.”

Homosexuality is slowly gaining acceptance in some parts of India, especially in its big cities. Many bars have gay nights and some high-profile Bollywood films have dealt with gay issues.

Still, being gay is deeply taboo and many marchers Sunday covered their faces because they hadn’t told their friends and families about their sexuality.

“Give me support, I want to take off my mask,” read a sign carried by a woman who gave her name only as Ganga.

Marchers said the parade was meant to send a message to authorities to repeal the law criminalizing gay sex, known as Section 377 of the Indian penal code. But it was also meant to reach Indians still in the closet.

“We’re going to tell them that you’re not alone,” said Arasu, the law student. “We are all going to be around to support you so you can live with dignity.”

Rajiv Dua, a community health expert handing out rainbow flags and buttons, said the motivation was simple.

“We don’t want to be ignored anymore,” he said.

The annual march down Fifth Avenue commemorated the Stonewall rebellion of 40 years ago, when patrons at a gay bar resisted the police. The several days of disturbances that followed the uprising became one of the defining moments of the gay rights movement.

The celebration was tempered by the knowledge that other states, including Massachusetts, Connecticut and Iowa, have legalized same-sex marriage before New York.

“Hopes and dreams and expectations have been raised, and there is nothing worse than to for people to have their hopes die out, to have the rug pulled out from under them,” said City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, New York City’s most prominent openly gay elected official.

Gov. David Paterson said he remains hopeful that the state Senate will pass a same-sex marriage bill – if it can resolve the partisan stalemate that has paralyzed it.

“If we have an end to the stalemate in Albany I would think that it would be passed shortly after,” he said. “We believe we can pass the bill.”

This year’s march featured the usual mix of seasoned activists, dazzling drag performers and floats blasting disco beats.

A faux Liza Minnelli in a slinky dress and spiky wig lip-synched “New York, New York” atop the Stonewall Inn float.

The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center’s float was sponsored by the Broadway musical “Shrek,” whose ogres-need-love-too message was apparently a good fit.

Flavia Rando marched with the Gay Liberation Front, which began in 1969 after the Stonewall uprising.

“It feels like we changed the world,” Rando said. “We started a global movement.”

In addition to Paterson, one of the parade’s grand marshals, elected officials marching included Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Sen. Charles Schumer.

Parade organizers claimed as many as 500,000 participants. That number was difficult to verify, but many thousands marched or lined Fifth Avenue to watch.

Spectator Mark Jester of Denton, Md., visiting New York for the first time, said the parade was “awesome,” especially the drag queens.

“I have a lot of respect, because if I would do that at home I literally would have to fight,” he said.

Danielle Staub of the Bravo reality show “The Real Housewives Of New Jersey” marched in heels that rivaled a drag queen’s and said gay people deserve the right to marry.

“My two marriages didn’t last as long as most of the gay community’s partnerships,” she noted.

As part of the yearlong celebration of the 400th anniversary of the Dutch encounter with New York, Amsterdam officials held a contest for couples to marry in that city, where same-sex marriage has been legal since 2001.

The winners, five couples with one Dutch partner and one American partner, will travel to Amsterdam for its August gay pride celebration and get married there.

“We kept saying we were going to do it here once it was legal in New York state,” said contest winner Stephan Hengst, who was born in the Netherlands and now lives in Highland, N.Y., with his partner Patrick Decker. “We hope to see it become legal in New York very soon.”

Just came back from the NYC Pride parade. Went with a former colleague who likes to impart life lessons. Carlos thinks I need to be less cranky and more attuned to the vagaries of popular culture; he was appalled I had no idea  one of the stars from Ugly Betty drove by us (never caught the actor’s name).

Anyway here are some pictures. There was stuff  that would make some  here shudder with disgust and other things that brought tears. For this crank it was the number of kids marching that was worthy of a hanky. Some staid and proud, others with attitude to match any diva. Kids unwilling to follow the lives us old heads did when we were the same age. Hard not to feel pride in that.