End of Gay Culture Watch

Among the more anachronistic relics of the gay liberation period is the Pride Parade. No mystery why, in Manhattan and other blue-state oases, it's a dying institution:

"I live in New York, and it's sort of like every day is Gay Pride Parade," said Matt Davie, 37, an associate publisher at Simon & Schuster, standing in the main room of G Lounge in Chelsea on June 14. "It's not this special day that I can suddenly throw on my rainbow flag, or whatever. That’s every day. I don’t need this special day where I’m out of the closet."

"We've been able to benefit from a lot of things from the Parade and all that it symbolizes, and now you have this option to opt out of it," said Mr. Patton, who goes every year largely because of his work at the Anti-Violence Project. "What you see is a lot of people exercising that option."

He said he and friends who work for gay causes talk often about whether they'd go if they didn’t have to for work. The consensus seems to be that they wouldn’t.

Last week, more than a dozen gay men interviewed at gay bars said they wouldn't attend the parade (only two said they would: one who said he’s been living here for eight months, the other for nine months). One generation that actively attended seems to have grown up, and another younger one doesn’t seem interested to begin with.

A 26-year-old graduate student in art history at New York University, Joe Ackley, who was at the Phoenix last Wednesday, doesn’t go.

"I hate Pride. My friend and I celebrate Pride by going to straight bars."

The far left accuses the opters-out of being racist. Nah. They're just bored. And faintly embarrassed.