Fourth of July parade attracts all walks of life

Fourth of July in Bloomington was celebrated with a parade and Pride Picnic before the town's annual firework spectacle at the IU Memorial Stadium.\nThousands of Hoosiers and guests lined the downtown square streets Tuesday afternoon to watch more than 130 local politician caravans, business roving billboards and community member floats parade south along College Avenue from 11th Street before motoring north along Walnut Street and back to the beginning. Parade entries, most draped in holiday red, white and blue décor, included everything from politicians pedaling tractors to painted poodles to floats.\nBeanpole, a national freedom-loving group of local folks describing itself as the "god of pointless behavior," built a float consisting of 32 chairs tied together to resemble a pyramid for its 11th straight year of Bloomington/Monroe County Fourth of July Parade participation. \n"I think pointlessness is a hallmark of American freedom," said Beanpole High Priest and Pasadena, Calif., resident Nathan Cambridge before the start of the parade. "It's important to define your freedom the way you like and make it your own ... I see the pile of chairs as being as patriotic as anything out here."\nCambridge said he calls Bloomington home in his Beanpole heart because he was born at Bloomington Hospital and he lived here for most of life before moving to California to pursue an acting career. He said the 10 or so Beanpole members who weathered the near-rainstorm clouds to march along with the float traveled into town from as far away as Seattle and China.\n"A lot of people were confused at first but now there is an expectation to see what we've done," Cambridge said while adorned in a white priest robe and a blue "CIA" hat. "We are a different card in the middle of the deck ... People can think whatever they want when they see us. Back to freedom, we don't have an agenda." \nCambridge said the average Beanpole member has participated in the parade for about eight years straight, and he was heard spouting "axioms of the day" like "mustard is the Tyrannosaurus of your nightmares" through a bullhorn along the parade route. Besides the pyramid of folding chairs, the Beanpole float also consisted of random elements like rubber chicken heads, a large green axe of injustice, a large blue axe of justice and signs that said, among other things, "woman is supermonkey."\n"When you confuse people they have no room to judge you," Cambridge said, "which opens up room for free thinking."\nBloomington Community Band members entertained the freedom-loving crowd with patriotic tunes on the Monroe County Courthouse lawn before the start of the main event, and community members were treated to their fair share of waving hands, candy tossing and U.S. flag-showcasing, all common of most Fourth of July parades.\nFeeling frustrated with increased roving advertising and decreased child-friendly entries, resident Sioux Hill, a rental specialist from www.Bloomington.net, said she entered her own "float" called \n"Poodles on Parade" based on a de facto social committee she formed called "Mothers for Better Floats." Her float consisted of about six decorated poodles, in either red, white and blue hair-spray paint or doggy outfits with military caps, which they walked along the parade route.\n"I am hoping to make little kids smile," Hill said, while painting a poodle named Clifford red before the show. "We are handing out doggy bones instead of candy."\nOther parade floats included a sleuth of local emergency vehicles blaring their sirens, both incumbent and challenging Democratic and Republican politicians representing every office from U.S. Congress to Monroe County sheriff and judge, Bloomington United Gymnastics School, Shriners driving mini motorcycles, a "Bio Bug" 1960s Volkswagen Beatle powered by vegetable oil, local realtors, local construction companies, local churches, a blue minivan with a sign that read "people with no agenda and nothing 4-sale" and Hoosiers for a Commonsense Health Plan reminding parade attendees about 800,000 Indiana residents have no health care coverage whatsoever.\nAfter the Bloomington/Monroe County Fourth of July Parade concluded, several hundred Hoosiers wandered to Third Street Park for the Third Annual Pride Picnic for free food by donation, live music, children's activities and information booths regarding gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender issues. A consortium of local and statewide social service agencies and restaurants co-sponsored including Indiana Equality, Bloomington Beacon, Inc., Unitarian Universalist Church "Civil Marriage is a Civil Right" Task Force, BloomingOut radio show on WFHB Community Radio, Bloomington Bagel Company and both the Bloomington and Spencer chapters of Parents and Friends of Lesbian and Gays. \nBloomington resident and IU professor Carol Wiethoff, regional coordinator for Indiana Equality, said the Fourth of July is an ideal holiday to celebrate the contributions of freedom-loving GLBT community members and their allies because most other days of the year they are an "invisible minority" due to continued social ignorance and discrimination.\n"GLBT people are a very vulnerable population subject to discrimination," she said. "The more comfortable we become with people not like us the less discrimination there is all-around. There is a certain amount of ignorance, a lack of understanding, regarding our GLBT friends and neighbors because there are still people who think it's a choice."\nWiethoff said most states allow employers to fire GLBT Americans and landlords can deny GLBT people rental opportunities even in Indiana if they only suspect they are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender. She said corporate America is ahead of most politicians and religious institutions in its protection of GLBT community members in their human right to make a living free of workplace or other discrimination.\n"The more we can be open about who human beings are, the better we will all become as a society. With this Fourth of July picnic we're getting there but we're not there yet," Wiethoff said. "People would not choose the discrimination GLBT people face -- the verbal and nonverbal harassment, sneers at the other side of the street. You can choose your own religious beliefs but you wouldn't want someone else inflicting their own religious belief on you. That's why we're celebrating today. Freedom, independence and 'we the people' means everyone"