The position of the Gay Officers Action League (GOAL), a coalition of New York City queer (mostly gay) cops, is instructive.

For many years GOAL marched in the NYC Pride parade, in civilian clothes, behind a small banner. Often, they faced heckling and harassment from the on-duty, uniformed cops policing Pride.

Somehow, over the years, that changed. GOAL began marching in uniform, guns strapped to their hips.

They began to take more heckling and harassment from the crowd than from other cops. Many queer people were, for all the good reasons you write about here, loathe to see uniformed cops in the parade, especially armed cops.

Heritage of Pride (the official, corporate-funded sponsors of most NYC Pride events) resisted serious pressure for many years to tell GOAL that their uniformed, armed presense at Pride was unacceptable.

Then a couple of years ago HOP finally heard the voices of NYC's marginalized queer communities. Queer people of color, trans people, etc, had risen to leadership positions in most of NYC'S queer advocacy groups, and they made very clear that they would not continue to support HOP so long as HOP supported uniformed, armed cops marching in the parade or participating in other HOP events.

So, HOP created new policies and announced them: No uniform cops in the parade or at any other HOP functions. GOAL went ballistic. They became furious, loudly insisting they were being "discriminated" against – as if choosing to work as a cop is somehow an intrinsic human identity like being Black or queer, rather than being a career choice.

Debates got really loud, often centering the voices of wealthy, gay male, white Manhattan residents who experience cops as their allies.

So HOP offered GOAL a compromise. You can march as a unit, but only in civilian clothes and only unarmed.

GOAL refused. To this day they're still demanding to march in uniform with guns strapped to their hips. They cite a New York City Police Department policy that supposedly requires cops to be armed off duty in certain circumstances. They cite no reason for why they must march in uniform. They apparently just want to.

So they're out. HOP won't let them in the parade.

That makes a lot of marginalized queer people feel a lot more comfortable at Pride. And a lot of queer people now question GOAL's sincerity.

If they genuinely want to support fellow queer people, why on Earth do they need to march in uniform? It doesn't make any sense.

As to being armed, well ... I'll go back to your final point. If your boss insists you carry a gun at Pride, perhaps you should consider other employment. Something's wrong with your boss.