Every year San Francisco has something called the Folsom Street Fair, where gays do some very bizarre things.  They dress like dogs, horses, and ponies, tie themselves up, get spanked, and more.  This isn't a fringe movement – thousands of homosexual (mostly men) do this. If gay is now normal, then why do they do these very strange things?  (This is from the San Francisco Chronicle, as mainstream as one can get in the City by the Bay.)

My oldest daughter and I were walking around San Francisco's SOMA neighborhood on a clear autumn day in search of a mattress store called Keetsa back in 2008. I remember turning a corner and almost bumping into an enormous naked man riding his bicycle on the sidewalk.

My daughter was five at the time and she was startled.

"Mom, why does that guy have a sock on his penis?" she asked.

"Um, well, um..."

"Why are there rings sticking through his bottom?"

Walking further down the sidewalk, we passed men wearing black leather chaps with their rears fully exposed and a few more naked guys.

I said more than "Ummm" when my daughter asked about the man with the sock on his penis, but my bumbling explanation isn't anything to offer up as an example for other parents.

The photos in the article show:

o Dog Masks. Men wearing dog masks.  A lot of men wearing dog masks.  And we're not talking about poodle or maltese masks, but very threatening-looking angry black dog masks.  There was even a very menacing group called the K9 demonstration group.  Are they looking for anonymity because they are ashamed of what they are doing?  Or do they find the idea of imitating dog behavior sexually attractive, and if so, why?

o Dog Behavior.  The photos show dog-face men almost completely naked on their hands and knees, imitating dogs Marcel Marceau style, and there was the man who was chewing on dog toys.  Is this about bestiality?  Sniffing of rear ends?  Something else?

o Horse Heads.  There were also people dressed in very disturbing-looking horse heads.  Again, if this isn't about a craving for bestiality, what is it about?  The fair also introduced something called "slave ponies," women wearing ears and long snouts over their faces.  One pony was gagged in a photo that had the caption: "Dressed in a pink pony outfit, participant Nikki, of the Los Angeles Pony and Critter Club, awaits for [sic] her pony master at the Folsom Street Fair."

o Whippings.  A number of men volunteered to be whipped.  One person who appeared to be a woman in black underwear had a back that was red from whipping.  Here's a typical caption: "Tim McDonald, left, stands behinds a parking meter as he is flogged by Phillip Wolf, right, at the Folsom Street Fair," and "People watch a man being flogged on a stage during the Folsom Street Fair."

o Exposed Anuses.  A lot of people had their rumps exposed, and others were fondling their bottoms in public.

o.  Bondage. People volunteered to be handcuffed to street signs.  And one man even had the word "prisoners" tattooed on his back and had himself locked up in chains and locks.  A third man had himself bound in leather and tied to a wheel.  One person had himself tied and hung upside down like a piece of meat in a frozen food locker.

o Tonguing in inappropriate areas.  One photo showed a shoeshine stand, but shoes were being shined with a man's tongue.

This fair was in public, on the streets of San Francisco, and though there were warnings for children to stay indoors, the public space had basically become invaded with very sexually inappropriate content.

The big question: is this typical of the gay community?  By the numbers, it sure looks like it is for at least a substantial minority.  Once again, this wasn't some deviant fair with 20 fairgoers.  There were thousands of participants, and this goes on every year.  How can we be asked to teach our children that this medically unsafe lifestyle, which doesn't produce children, is the equal of traditional men-women relationships, especially when this disturbing subculture seems to be married, for want of a better word, to the whole gay rights movement?

By the way, while some heterosexuals go to strip clubs, or buy kinky sexual devices, nowhere in the world will you find a similar large exhibition of sexual perversity like this in the heterosexual community.  It's exclusively in the gay community, and it raises a lot of disturbing questions.

This article was written by Ed Straker, senior writer of NewsMachete.com, the conservative news site.