Of course there's room for a Straight Pride march – and this is how we could do it

You'll want the boys in blue at your parade, of course, to protect the marchers from heterosexual hate crimes. You know the type – all those attacks on straight pubs, with swastikas and 'You’re going ‘straight’ to hell!' graffiti-d on the windows. Pride is a safe space where you can finally walk the streets as a man and woman without checking ahead

(AP)

The final straw? The point where gay equality tipped into homofascism? Selfies.

Snapchat’s new Gay Pride filters allow users to post rainbow flags on their photos, to support LGBT rights. But for some people, the images merely show the ugly face of straight discrimination. Twitter exploded.

“When do straight people get supportive filters? #StraightPride,” one outraged heterosexual tweeted. This is the future that heterosexual rights activist have long warned about – where straight people can’t even take a flattering photo of their duck pout for Tinder without tripping over a Gay Pride filter.

The whole issue of heterosexual rights flares up each year, particularly during Pride Month. As LGBT people up and down the country march in celebration and solidarity, organisations like Straight Pride UK cry out at the unfairness of it all.

“Where’s my month?” moaned a guy on Twitter last week. “I guess I’m just inferior to you.” The other 11 months aren’t enough, clearly.

As a gay man who has long looked forward to full equality, it would be remiss of me to ignore this injustice. So, for anyone that wants a straight pride event, I say go ahead. But before setting up the stalls, ordering the drinks, and posting police around religious groups who think you’re the devil, best read the small print below.

Finally, your chance to shine

Pride is the exact opposite of shame, that toxic emotion resulting from a world which thinks you’re abnormal and abhorrent. It’s the shiny rainbow after years hiding from the rain.

So make this a celebration. For all those kids isolated by whispers that they might be “dirty heteros”, voicing to their classmates what they can’t even admit to themselves, here’s some respite.

And for the adults kicked and beaten because they were brave enough to abandon their long-term gay partner after years of failed straight conversion therapy and suppressed feelings for the opposite sex, it should be empowering too.

It’s OK for marchers to stick two fingers up to those teachers, police and other authority figures who might have been homophobic toward you in the past. Don’t believe them: it was never your fault. You can never be too flamboyantly straight.

A safe space in a society that hates straights

Alongside activists and allies, Pride parades now include some of the world’s biggest companies. But in today’s heterophobic workplace, it may be tough to find any that want to participate. After all, not one FTSE-100 company has a network dedicated to its straight employees. It’s injustice like this that makes for great protest slogans, signs and flags. Be creative!

You’ll want the boys in blue at your parade too, despite the fact some still don’t take straight people seriously. They’ll protect the marchers from heterosexual hate crimes. You know the type – all those attacks on straight pubs, with swastikas and “You’re going ‘straight’ to hell!” graffiti-d on the windows. The endless reports of couples denied a room in a bed and breakfast because straight sex is a sin. And don’t forget the taxi drivers chucking people out of the car as the driver screams that, “God made Adam and Steve, not Adam and Eve!”

Pride is a safe space. Finally, you can walk the streets as man and woman, proudly holding hands without mentally scanning if they’ve you’ve taken a wrong turn and need to anticipate a glass up the head. Enjoy the freedom.

Keep it political

Over the years, the best Pride parades were passionate and political. After all, the very first pride was more riot than Raining Men. So, what do you want to protest?

Perhaps it’s the lack of resources which offer a helping hand to straight people emerging from the closet. Compare with homosexuals: they’re lucky enough to have entire charities dedicated to helping LGBT youth who come out to their parents only to end up without any afterwards. If that’s not privilege, I don’t know what is.

Don’t forget to fundraise for the issues you’re protesting as well. Especially if you want to help your brothers and sisters abroad, many of whom still live in countries that kill people for straight sex. If you need to locate them on a map, you can borrow mine.

Ignore those 72 states in red, where it’s illegal for two guys to get it on in the bedroom. 175 million gay people live in those countries, but they’ll have to wait. With so much still to do in the UK, surely we need to get our priorities straight.

Timing is everything

With all of the above in mind, you’re now just a hop, skip and a march away from your own Straight Pride. But just one last thing: you’ll want to keep a watch handy. The event must start at the right time.

So, the second kids are chucked out of their home for loving the opposite sex, you start to assemble. The moment anyone contemplates suicide because being straight in a gay world is too tough, raise those flags. And the very instant that being straight is a crime, anywhere in the world, then and only then do you start to march.

I’d wish you a happy Pride. But if you haven’t worked it out by now, without the rain, you can’t have a rainbow.