An apparent hate crime took place in the wee hours of the morning today after hours of preparation, dozens of Pride float tires were slashed with a knife in Chicago. The floats were lined up on Chicago’s South Side in preparation for the city’s annual Pride celebration. Some time between 8 p.m. when one of the organizers left and 5 a.m. today when he returned, vandals slashed tires on several floats.
The Windy City Times spoke with Chuck Huser, owner of longtime Pride float provider Associated Attractions -where the crime occurred.
The attackers broken in but did no other damage to the floats, and they took nothing else, leaving Huser to believe this had to be a hate crime. No notes were left.
Huser has filed a police report, but his main focus the morning of the Pride Parade was finding an open tire shop, where they were running back and forth to repair the tires.
“They didn’t want these folks to go out,” Huser said. He added that he has no disgruntled employees or customers, and that most of his workers have been with him more than 20 years.
The start of the Parade may have to be somewhat delayed while Huser and his team work frantically to repair the damaged tires.
Talk About Equality 
First, did they really think they could stop the parade by slashing the tires? Or was the idea to simply cause more expense for the sponsors?
Second, do they really think gays will simply go away, disappear or “become straight” if the parade was stopped? Don’t they know how many straight allies participate in these parades? This straight ally hopes this incident doesn’t put a damper on today’s parade (and in fact wishes she could be there to participate).