Gay In DC

Jillian Bandes | October 11, 2009 9:16 PM

Rep. Barney Frank, the first openly gay member of Congress, called the National Equality March a "waste of time," and that "the only thing they're going to be putting pressure on is the grass." I had a pretty hard time telling that to the folks strutting around the Capitol today in body paint, with only underwear and nipple pasties as clothing. I don't want to mis-characterize the event — the vast majority of participants were pretty tame. But I didn't see many male cross-dressers at the 9/12 March on DC, or guys wearing pink sombrero hats.

Yes, that's what you think that is, there on her lap:

The crowd was pretty strong. I'm wary of throwing out an estimate, but I'll guess somewhere between 30,000 and 40,000, if 60,000 people turned out for the 9/12 March (as many now believe).

I never had a chance with this guy:

And of course, you had the crazies:

I questioned that guy for a while on camera, where he explained that if the "if" wasn't in the sign, he would understand how his sign could be offensive. That video will be up by tomorrow afternoon. For now, check out more coverage of the march here.