Caressing An Old Victory

Amsterdam Gay Pride's annual Canal Parade simply stunned me because it was huge beyond any pride parade I had ever seen (or even heard about), plus the canals made it visually beautiful.  But the most striking thing was that it was not a protest.  Most of the celebrants were not yet born when homophobia was a force in Dutch society. Several of the canal boats were full of LGBT civil servants, including the police, the army, and the postal service (see extras).

This main image shows a lesbian couple intimately caressing each other on a raised rainbow, floating past a rainbow banner that hangs from the tower of one of the main Christian churches of a large city, and their little journey was cheered by at least a million people, heckled by no one. That, my friends, is wonderful beyond words.