This aversion is not limited to Pride. Frankly, I don’t like any political or social movement enough to wear its jersey in public. By disposition, I’m not much of a joiner — in no small part because even when I agree with a lot of what a given outfit has to say, I invariably have profound problems with the rest of the baggage that goes along with it.

One of the greatest tricks that professional advocates have pulled in recent years is to pretend that their organization represents the pure distillation of a given cause — gay rights, black equality, free speech, conservatism, whatever — and that if anyone opposes it for any reason, they must oppose those things per se. But that’s nonsense, isn’t it? Sometimes those groups say things I like, sometimes they don’t, but I’m no more going to endorse them in full by wearing their clothes than I’m going to pledge fealty to a given politician because I like his approach toward taxes. If I want to show blind loyalty to a given outfit, I’ll stick to following professional sports — which, now that I think of it, would be a good idea for the NHL, too.

[Unless you’re a Browns fan, of course. Heh. — Ed]