Jason Vanrooy

The difference between a Pride march and a Pride parade is the floats. Parade floats, loaded with people, dripping with energy and pounding music bring the energy level up in the parade.

When teacher Ray Desautels goes to a school function with his partner he knows the gay couple won’t face a hostile reaction. “I have always been able to (attend functions),” he says of the accepting environment in the St. James-Assiniboia School Division in west Winnipeg. “I have found St. James-Assiniboia to be supportive (though it) was not always that way.”  That acceptance extends to allowing gay and lesbian teachers to display photos of their significant others in the classroom, he says. Sadly, acceptance isn’t universal, Desautels points out. It’s common “in most Winnipeg schools [but] in rural areas not so much,” he says.