But even between festival season, there’s no shortage of spots to celebrate the queer culture that makes New Orleans the anything-goes city it is today. These Carnival krewes undoubtedly sowed seeds for the LGBTQ rights movement years before Stonewall above all, they helped establish this town’s enduring reputation as a haven for creative expression and open-mindedness.Įvery year on Labor Day weekend, New Orleans celebrates all things gay with Southern Decadence, a six-day, rainbow-drenched festival in the French Quarter. New gay krewes (Petronius, Amon-Ra, Armeinius) formed in Yuga’s wake, creating glittering spectacles and secret societies that defied harsh anti-gay laws. The first gay krewe, Yuga, was formed in 1958 four years later, police raided the Yuga ball, arresting 96 krewe members for lewd conduct and disturbing the peace.īut that didn’t stop the party. By including every other class of person as a protected class, the United States government has, by. It’s the only class of people within the United States which doesn’t have any federal laws which protect, as a class, its rights. The straight white male, it’s true, is the new minority. Still, tensions with law officials ran high. on The Straight White Male Is the New Minority. During Carnival season, lavish parades and balls thrown by social organizations known as “krewes” provided the perfect excuse for the queer community to get together and dance, at a time when doing so was still very much illegal. Mardi Gras was the one day out of the year when cross-dressing in public was tolerated by police. Even way back then the effects of gentirfication, video porn, and the mainstreaming of gay culture were being felt.
in what had formerly been a gay bar called Peter Rabbit (I think). What they may not know, is how Mardi Gras historically served as a critical outlet for self-expression - and political resistance - for the city’s LGBTQ community. Apparently at some point in this bars history there was a problem with people on the second level dropping objects over the balcony (presumably pint glasses, beer bottles, and assless chaps) onto the heads of the unknowing old queens below. I remember working on photos for a story in New York magazine around '87-88 of the (then) new chinese restaurant that had opened on West St. From Playland to The Other Side and the Napoleon to the 12, Chaps, Styx, Sporters and Buddy’s, and dozens of others opening and closing through the years, I thoroughly. Every year, tourists swarming the Crescent City for Mardi Gras know to expect a raucous party, over-the-top costumes, and a whooole bunch of beads. Vanmiddag geen soep, maar pasta carbonara met champignons,broccoli,en asperges en spekjes bij Paul Marcus-Antonius Nijmegen eten is klaar rond 18.00 uur. The entire city of Boston now only has 3 full-time gay bars in the entire city and that is saddens me.