Oooooooooooh grill, there's more to this story.

Thuper Thrilled

Dom - is this an attempt to make a joke based on stereotypes of gay men?

@2 of course not, silly!

of corthse not, thilly.

Dear SOaP,

Um...What? Uh...forgive me for being dumb, but its just a rainbow flag, right? Like, nothing different about it than the giant rainbow flag that HRC uses to collect money, right? Am I missing something? Is this the last rainbow flag ever built or something? Is it signed by anybody? Maybe Dale fucking Chihuly? Why would any other pride org need a touring rainbow flag?

Lost,
TheMisanthrope

THANK YOU, misanthrope @5

SOaP, just another out of touch anti-political gay organization that vacuums cash out of the pockets of working queers.

This is why I support GetEqual's Take Back Pride campaign. I feel so silly fighting for equal rights when important issues like where the rainbow flag will be are on the table.

What are the qualifications for being on the SOaP board? A complete ignorance of the politics of the queer movement, a flair for event planning, and a passion for the mundane?

@5, maybe it has a giant sparkly unicorn or pony or, I know, I know, a magic flying dolphin on it.

Won't you be embarrassed when you wake up Gay-Day morning and they've painted the whole thing rainbow?

So...the Space Needle's commitment to honoring diversity consists of not flying the flag and then paying for it to travel as far away from the Needle as possible? I'm sad for the Wheedle on top, he must hate his corporate masters.

@5 Indeed, maybe if the flag had, ya know, actually flown in space, and not just on top of the Space Needle, I'd give a fuck.

Ha @10 sounds sad, but seems true.

I'm glad I got a shot of it from last year. I'll dig it up and add it to the Flickr pool.

I don't get why people are getting so bent out of shape over this. The Space Needle is a private company. They flew the pride flag once. It was cool and all, and I liked it. But I don't see why people think they are then obligated to fly it ever year forever more.

@13, no one has suggested that they are obligated. They're just disappointed they're not continuing, which is fair and understandable, and pointing out that stopping is a slap in the face, which it is.

Is the Space Needle done flying the 12th Man flag?

@15: You've not noticed that it's not there any longer I guess, eh?

@7 I agree with you completely. SO ampersand P = SOP, quite an appropriate name for this feckless organization. This press release comes off as a desperate attempt to appear relevant, but what it really shows is the SOP (standard operating procedure) brain trust trying to put a positive spin on a major diss to the LGBT community by the Space Needle honchos. Good luck trying to sell this silly slant to anyone with a working mind, SOP.

Oh, yes, the old I-could-do-better-but-i'm-just-too-relevant-right-now argument . One of the many reasons I gave up on "the community" years ago.

So they couldn't get a private company to fly a flag over the Space Needle. It's their building, they don't want to do it. And while the GLBT population in the city is a bigger tourist draw and economic engine than the Seahawks, and probably contributes more to the needle's bottom line, it doesn't have the same cache. There is no 12th man of gayness. Why not accept that, and try other things?

I like the Smith Tower idea, as Pioneer Square was the original gay neighborhood, and site of some of the original gay rights protests. Maybe it could be sponsored by different neighborhoods each year. After all, This town has lots of flagpoles, and we really are everywhere.

Silly dramas like this remind me of years ago, when the Socialists were running the "march and protest" (which is what the parade used to be called) and, after a long and contentious struggle over whether NAMBLA should be allowed to march (they weren't), the whole thing almost fell apart over the locations of the porta-potties at Volunteer Park. Luckily, in those days, the committee was chaired by a large imposing woman who got her way by yelling louder and longer than anyone else. I wonder what she would make of nonsense like this.

More importantly, how many Chinese 14 year olds went blind sewing that flag in the first place?

Gay flags should be made by gay Americans!

No outsourcing!

I like the Smith Tower idea too. Another option is to have an airplane banner towing firm fly the flag during the parade. On a different note, it's clear that the only thing these guys understand and respond to is money. Remember, the Seattle Center sued SOaP, the group that botched the 2006 event resulting in $150,000 debt, so a boycott of the frivolous beer garden get-wet-in-fountain after party (that's run by a for-profit party organizer) makes sense to me. Also, if they don't fly the flag, next time your friends and relatives visit Seattle, boycott the Space Needle with their horrible trinket shop and overpriced restaurant. Let's stop delivering a river of LGBT bodies and cash to the Seattle Center and Space Needle. I bet that will get their attention.

The trouble with boycotts is they don't work. Oh, I suppose that if there were 700 people who, each and every day, came to the needle wearing an I AM GAY t shirt, and those people stopped buying tickets, it might be noticed, but an unannounced boycott of an uncertain number of people - particularly during tourist season - is pretty skimpy.

And, as a middle-aged homemaker who never, ever gets out except for Pride Day, there's no way I am going to boycott the party at the center. That's the only way I get to see anyone anymore.