Manchester Gay Pride 2012: Thousands march in annual parade

by liamssoft | August 26, 2012 at 10:08 am

329 views | 3 Recommendations | 0 comments

MANCHESTER's campest carnival parade meandered its way through the city centre on Saturday, uniting Mancunians and visitors under the rainbow flag.

A diverse throng of floats lit up the streets with the likes of Citroen cars calling onlookers to put more colour in their lives and the cast of Coronation Street chucking polaroids of Hayley Cropper at the crowds.

This year's theme, Queer'd Science, was often haphazardly taken up by parade participants but nonetheless resulted in a colourful depiction of Manchester's scientific history.

The University of Manchester made their debut by claiming ownership of the late great gay, Alan Turing, father of the modern computing age, whilst the Royal Bank of Scotland rewrote the periodic table with Hg signifying Freddie Mercury and Cu meaning Sexy Police Copper.

Manchester Pride's dominance over the UK pride festival calendar continues and as the conglomerates continue to jump on the pride parade bandwagon, the locally produced floats are still the most imaginative and hilarious.

The Salford Ladies United Temperance Society (S.L.U.T.S) are always a highlight and, in the spirit of all things scientific, swung a giant 'gayger counter' device over the crowds to hunt down filthy gays.When their device blasted its siren, the ladies grabbed their handbags and beat the gay into submission before setting back off on their hunt.

On a more serious note, a significant contribution to the Pride Parade came from Manchester City Council.The Council has been unable to financially support Manchester Pride for two years in its bid to make cut-backs. It must be remembered though a couple of decades ago MCC was the first local authority anywhere to come out for the celebration.This time round council workers handed out leaflets, calling parade attendees to send a SMS message of support to the LGBT community of Manchester's twin city, St Petersburg, who are currently suppressed by the anti-gay laws in place there. And it's getting worse.

Source: manchesterconfidential.co.uk