Apparently, "breeders" AND Hewbrews weren't welcome this year. Ya. Rae is the "Jesse Jackson" of the gay community. No question there. Naturally, like yourself, I'm MORE pissed at the GM bailout. And while $400 000 is a pitance compared to such, why add fuel to the bailout fire? Especially when this year's parade was overtly racist and exclusive? For all intents and purposes, that's essentially condoning such behaviors. As far as I'm concerned.

It's absolutely knee-slapping funny, Rae considered the NDP "too conservative". Well, he's certainly alligned himself with appropriate company this time! People like Miller. Who only passes bills, if they better HIS, PERSONAL agenda. You know what they say! "Birds of a feather..."

Of course as you correctly pointed out, the federal government would have collected much of that revenue regardless of investment. And realistically, $400,000 is a token sum. It's something the politicians can parade (pardon the pun) in front of gay voters and say "See? We're progressive!"

And that's all Rae is doing here. He's grandstanding for his constituents, in much the same way that Brad Trost is grandstanding for his own constituents. Neither one of them really gives a damn about the issue, they only care about sucking up to their respective voter blocks.

What shocked me is that the Conservatives would even bother over such a small amount of money. No, I don't personally approve of the federal government handing over $400,000 of tax dollars to a parade I am not even welcome to attend (Did you notice the "breeders stay home" overtones this year?). But I find it a whole lot less distasteful than the federal government handing over $30 BILLION to GM, for example. Where's Trost's outrage for *that* pork?

As for Rae, I've got bigger fish to fry with him than his blatant anti-religious rhetoric. Like maybe his unwillingness to stand up to CUPE. But then again, I wouldn't really expect anything less from a man who literally gave up his membership in the Ontario NDP because it was "too conservative". (Yes, I'm serious. It really happened! Rae led a local boycott of the NDP in the 1993 by-election in the riding of St. George—St. David (now Toronto Centre-Rosedale) because of the failure of the NDP government to pass long-promised reforms on gay rights issues.)