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Liberals don't find Straight Pride acceptable.

DETRIOT FREE PRESS
Ferndale -- Marchers take part in Straight Pride parade

June 17, 2002

About 100 people marched through downtown Ferndale on Sunday morning in a Straight Pride Parade, billed as a celebration of the heterosexual lifestyle.

The parade was organized by talk-radio hosts Kramer and Twitch of WKRK-FM as a tongue-in-cheek event in a community that recently hosted more than 15,000 people for a gay-pride gathering. Organizers could not be reached for comment.

According to the radio station's Web site, the parade was also sponsored by the He-Man Women Hater's Club of America. The group's toll-free number has been disconnected.

Gay activists who attended Sunday's parade said the crowd was anything but joking. The parade, with marchers chanting "Straight is great" and pumping their fists in the air, looked like an antigay rally, not a celebration, said Sean Kosofsky of the Triangle Foundation.

Ferndale police said there were no incidents associated with the parade.

Kosofsky said organizers further mocked the gay community by holding the parade on the same street as the gay-pride festival and during gay-pride month.

"Having a publicity stunt at the expense of a minority group is insensitive," said Kosofsky, who added he plans to ask the radio station management not to hold future straight parades. "We're marching because we don't have what you have. They're doing this to promote a radio show." By Amy Klein