>>>>>>I have not pursued going to the Philly group for three reasons:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>(1) I attended a Gay Pride event there in the late 90s when I was on the Indy Gay Pride board for a short time. (No, I'm not gay. A co-worker friend of mine rented a room from a woman who was on the board, and she introduced me to them. At that time I was not a Christian, and I believed in the "equal rights" system, even desiring to do my part to help out). I equate Philadelphia with that event in my mind.
>>>>>
>>>>>Oh, brother...(oh, wait, Philly is the city of brotherly love.) Yeah, I can see why you'd want to stay away.
>>>>>
>>>>>(Hopefully everyone else realizes I'm being facetious)
>>>>
>>>>facetious - for sure. But also sure I'm not getting a real picture (probably some connection with the Hanks movie and Philly I always missed).
>>>>Enlighten us poor foreign souls, (to stay in religious chatter mode)
>>>
>>>Actually, I wasn't even thinking of that movie at all.....just an expression, because everyone refers to Philly as the city of brotherly love, nothing more.
>>
>>was aware of that, the theme of the Hanks movie but not clear about whether Philly is supposed to have more gays than other cities. For instance over here Cologne is most mentioned in such connection - even if real % probably does not differ much with the exception of media/art jobs, but offers a bit more places targeted for the audience.
>
>Nope, no more than any other big cities. In the US, the city most often cited for being gay-friendly is San Francisco.
>

It is the Mecca for gays. It is a place they can feel at home and not ostracized. I am not gay -- probably every hetero guy says that -- but it was really striking. When I lived in CA early in my career I lived in LA and was there several times at Safeway corporate HQ. One of the striking scenes was two guys walking down the street in San Francisco, one of them fondling the other one's butt. And that was no problem for anyone.