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Well, as promised, here's my report on the 1st Annual Heterosexual Pride parade, sponsored by local pop ClearChannel radio station G-105, which is based out of Raleigh, NC. The parade was held in Chapel Hill.

[The original blog post about this event is here; I also posted a Daily Kos diary.]

Anyway, my partner Kate and I drove into CH from Durham, listening to word of the event from the DJs. Didn't even hear a mention of it until we were driving up and down Franklin Street at 10:45, which was the start time for the parade. There were no signs of activity, other than the usual Saturday traffic and locals strolling and shopping. We turned around and checked the other end of Franklin, toward the Carrboro side. We saw a few balloons and figured this was it and parked just off the parade route. (This was already a sign of things to come -- parking in CH at anytime once UNC is back in session is difficult).

It was a pathetic turnout for Bob and the Showgram (the morning drive time show), even by radio stunt standards. G-105 didn't even bother simulcasting from the "event," and had only a couple of trucks in the parade with smallish logos promoting the station. (the trucks had blow-up sex dolls as passengers), There was a sad little table at the beginning of the parade route with a few T-shirts and merchandise with "Flaming Heterosexual" emblazoned on them. Not a lot of selling going on.

Oh, did I mention that about half of the crowd was visibly gay or gay friendly (carrying supportive signs)? That knocks down the straight turnout to just a handful of people.

The poor souls couldn't muster enough people to close down the parade route. Or even the whole street during the procession. The Chapel Hill police held off traffic on one side of the street, for less than a block at a time as they marched about a quarter mile.

I don't think there's going to be a Second Annual Het Pride event.

Pictures are below. Click to enlarge.
--Pam

West Franklin, street where the parade was held.	So pathetic the turnout that the traffic was still flowing at the start time (10:45)
Well, here is the whole crowd that showed up, no lie..	However, about 1/2 of this crowd was actually queer folks.
So the parade begins.	The other mascot finally gets his suit on.
Again, more gay representation than straight.	The G-105 logo was not abundant during this. By the way, this was one of 3 trucks that had a blow-up sex doll aboard.
The festivities ended after about 15 minutes, tops, at Henderson St.	There was a table selling "Flaming Heterosexual" merchandise. We didn't notice much sales activity.
We came prepared with a sign, but decided the event was too pathetic to participate in it...	We'll save it for the NC Pride parade, which is coming up on Oct. 2 in Durham.