That’s what his tee-shirt proclaimed as he led the Calgary gay pride parade.

Language is often an indicator of a cultural climate. In this case “straight, not narrow”, a play on “straight and narrow”, has been blazoned across the mayor’s chest as a very public declaration of virtue: he may not be a homosexual (to be so and advertise it would be an even greater declaration of virtue), but he is not so narrow as to be intolerant – unlike Toronto’s mayor – of those who are; and he is proud of it.

The original phrase “straight and narrow” means “the way of proper conduct and moral integrity” and is itself a variation of “Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life” (Matthew 7:14). No mayor is likely to win approval by advocating  “proper conduct and moral integrity” at a gay pride parade, so Mayor Nenshi did the next best thing: he used a phrase which has accumulated centuries of cultural resonance and turned it into the opposite of its intended meaning.

A fitting tribute to a parade bearing a rubric whose meaning has suffered a similar inversion: pride.