Minneapolis: We’re the gayest!

The Advocate recently came out with a list of the 15 gayest cities in America—and guess who’s leading the pack? Hint: It’s not New York City. In fact, NYC doesn’t make the list at all, which gives Gawker’s Brian Moylan something to complain about. (Oh no, someone isn’t paying attention to New York!) Moylan says that the criteria used to determine the rankings are rather dubious, and given that these “best city for X” lists are always dubious, yeah, he has a point.

Factors considered in compiling the list include each city’s number of openly gay elected officials, lesbian bars, listed officiants for same-sex weddings, and, hilariously, every Tegan And Sara concert in the last five years. That random tabulation was then divided by the city’s population, and that’s where New York City’s gayness takes a nose dive. Sorry, Big Apple, you’re just too damn big. Moylan takes cheap shots at a number of cities on the list, but seems especially peeved that a reasonably sized burg in flyover country took first place: “So which city came out on top? Minneapolis. Yup, the home of Prince and cold weather. Neither of those things are necessarily gay.”

Hmm. We have encountered clueless, homophobic men who would argue against half of that statement. Prince’s hetero power notwithstanding, The Advocate points out that this is where the Evangelical Lutheran Church voted to accept gay and lesbian pastors. Our own Sen. Al Franken introduced the Student Non-Discrimination Act to prevent anti-gay bullying. We also apparently have a hot gay rugby team. If only it weren’t so cold here, so they could run around with their shirts off more often.