Budweiser flags up how Pride has been taken over by corporations

Maurice Bowra, the flamboyant warden of Wadham College from 1938 to 1970, once argued against the legalisation of homosexuality on the grounds that it would take all the fun out of it. Without the risk of being picked up by the police, cruising up and down the Cowley Road at one in the morning would become rather tedious. He referred to the secret club of powerful homosexuals in the British establishment as the ‘homintern’ and prided himself on being a high-ranking officer. He liked the fact that there was something exotic and clandestine about his sexuality and dreaded the risk of embourgeoisement if the law was changed.

Easy for Bowra to say, of course, protected as he was by wealth and privilege. And he may not have really meant it. But you can’t help wondering what he would have made of Pride, the month-long celebration of LGBT identities that now takes place every summer.