Gay glossy The Advocate is
facing criticism for the criteria used in creating its annual gayest
cities list.
In its latest iteration of its annual
list, Advocate editors concocted an LGBT quotient equation
that San Francisco champions have called “arbitrary.”
“This year's criteria, designed to
uncover the hidden factors that give a city its queer cred,” the
editors wrote, “include points for a city’s LGBT elected
officials (and fractional points for the state's elected officials),
points for the percentage of the population comprised by
lesbian-coupled households, a point for a gay rodeo association,
points for bars listed in Out magazine's 200 Best Bars list, a
point per women's college, and points for concert performances by
Mariah Carey, Pink, Lady Gaga, or the Jonas Brothers. The raw score
is divided by the population to provide a ranking based on a per
capita LGBT quotient.”
Cities which scored the highest include
No. 1 ranked Washington D.C. Pasadena, California, Seattle,
Washington, Cambridge, Massachusetts and Atlanta, Georgia round out
the top 5.
San Francisco did not break the top
ten.
“And perhaps the fact that they pick
different, equally arbitrary criteria every year in the making of
this list, just so they can rearrange the ranking in new and
arbitrary ways, should be another reason to call it stupid?”
Sfist.com's
Jay Barmann wrote. “Seattle is No. 3 this year, but where's
big gay Tacoma, which was No. 1 for 2013??? And what? Pasadena?
Pasadena is now gayer than San Francisco and Los Angeles? Just. No.
Stop. Shut it down.”
“We hereby declare that The
Advocate is officially the least gay magazine in America. US
Weekly and Details are in the number one and two spots,
and The Advocate doesn't even get an honorable mention. You
know why? Because they think Pasadena is a queer mecca. The death
of this annual list can not come soon enough,” added Barmann, whose
post was adorned with a photo of a rainbow lit San Francisco City
Hall.
Advocate editors also faced a
backlash last month in naming Pope
Francis their Person of the Year.