Jack Elfrink Dot Com

Does the size of a crowd indicate the importance of the social movement?

An offhand comment I heard claimed that the crowd in DC to attend the Obama inauguration was not only the largest ever for the capital, but the largest gathering of people together at one spot ever in the history of the world. I was a bit skeptical of this so I loaded up google and went a hunting for stats and data on the actual largest events in history.

Didnt take long to find the wikipedia page on it. The 1.8-million estimate for Obama doesn’t even come close. The biggest is a Hindu pilgrimage at 70 million. However, another item on the list surprised me, even though it shouldn’t be surprising at all.

Its the Gay Pride parade in São Paulo, Brazil. It has three entries on the list at the time I write this. 2005-2006-2007. Not included is 2008 but that’s probably just a lag. Other sources claim 5 million people for 2008.

This would make the gay pride parade the largest annual event globally. The Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca would come in a distant second with 1-1.7 million each year. The Olympics are bigger but don’t happen each year. And the Tour de France is bigger but dosen’t happen in one spot. The gay pride parade is therefore in the same league as ‘once in a lifetime’ events like Boston Red Sox’s 2004 world series victory parade or the funeral of Pope John Paul II. Year after year after year it draws the largest gathering of people in history. Its bigger than Brazilian Carnival.

Im constantly infuriated by people who claim that people fighting for sexual freedom are a poor helpless underdog of a minority just trying to fight for their rights under the oppressive and powerful religious monolith that is out to destroy sex for everyone. But a gay rights parade being bigger than the Muslim Hajj kind of indicates to me that the ‘underdog’ and the ‘oppressive dominate culture’ are probably not corresponding to the groups they think they are.

A BBC article on the 2005 gay pride event quoted the event organizer as saying “Brazil had a long way to go in overcoming homophobia.” Long way to go? When you are already the largest event of any kind of any event of any sort in any country at any time in all of history what is the next step? How much longer do you need to go anyway?

“Ah! But wait!” calls out the voice of the cynic. “Your talking about Brazil here. They are a lot more open minded. Here in the united states, in evil oppressive united states, in close minded homophobic intolerant united states, in prudish Victorian minded united states, HERE things are different. HERE gays are the minority and are under the boot of the powerful christian lobby! HERE we must fight tooth and nail for acceptance”

The largest gay pride event in the united states is in NewYork. In 2008 it drew 1.5 million (one mil watching, half mil marching). How does this compare to other annual events?

• Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade 3,500,000
• Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo 1,802,158
• San Francisco Gay Pride 1.2 million
• New Year’s Eve in Times Square 1,000,000
• Tournament of Roses Parade 1,000,000
• Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta 899,446
• Mardi Gras 800,000
• US Open 720,000
• St. Patrick’s Day in Boston 500,000
• Chicago Pride Parade 450,000
• Indianapolis-500 400,000
• Sturgis Motorcycle Rally 400,000
• Folsom Street Fair400,000
• L.A. Pride 375,000
• Spring Break at Panama City Beach 350,000
• Boston Pride 300,000
• Capital Pride 200,000
• Kentucky Derby 157,770
• GayDays 150,000
• National Finals Rodeo 140,000?
• Super Bowl 125,000
• Southern Decadence 120,000

Ok, so NY Pride isn’t the single largest annual event in the nation. But third place ain’t that shabby. And looking over the list there are several other 100K+ events that are also gay pride events.

Oh yeah, and just by way of comparison, the largest ever turnout for a Billy Graham event, not an annual year-after-year event like the ones above but the largest EVER, was 160,000. One ninth the size of the New York Pride march.

And people still play the roll of the victim? Acting like the gay movement is this poor helpless oppressed minority being crushed under the mighty giant of the christian powerhouse?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 21st, 2009 at 7:31 am and is filed under Damn those evil christians, oppression. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.