I heard on the BBC local news today that london is planning to bid for the 2018 ‘Gay Games ‘, and I ust want to say that the idea struck me as very stupid indeed, yet is on I fully support. For starters the very idea of a gay games is foolish: why would LGBT people need a games just for theirselves? There is no reason why they can’t compete with straight people. We crips need our own games, the Paralympics, because the playing field would not be level. Just imagine a race between runners and wheelchair users, and the carnage that would inevitably cause. The two events must be kept separate for obvious reasons, then, and even then I would favour greater integration between the two. My preferred option would be to get rid of the two week gap between the Olympics and Paralympics and run the two simultaneously, as that gap, however big, implies difference.

Why, then, would gay people need or want their own games? They compete like everyone else, so the segregation is unneccesarry and artificial. Why deliberately create a division? On that level I find the idea repugnant. And yet I love it. How great would it be to revive the spirit of 2012, to host another monumental sporting event in this great city? Let’s face it: we aren’t going to see another Olympic games here in our lifetime. Even if we do bid for the games of 2032, we will be bidding against new York or Paris. They both intend to bid for the 2024 games, and since no city can bid for two games in a row, whoever looses in ’24 will bid in ’32. Given that London has hosted the games three times and so recently, it would be unfair for the IOC to choose London over either of those two. Thus these gay games might be our only chance to host such a party for a very long time.

And party it would be! Take the Olympics and multiply it by mardi gras! We in the LGBT comunity know how to put a show on, and a little pride right now would not go amiss either. The segregation debates aside, along with reservations about the cost, i really think this is a great idea. Indeed, maybe then it will be the other kind of queen which parachutes into the stadium with James Bond.