We thought that someone would have been able to convince Mayor Rob Ford that when a significant Toronto community stages an annual festival known around the world, the mayor's schedule is adjusted — no, designed — to accommodate it.

We thought someone would have reminded Mayor Ford that despite his own personal or religious views, despite his unease around gay people, despite his natural or cultivated antipathy towards such Torontonians, he had to do the mayor thing — the grip and grin, the bringing of greetings on behalf of the people of Toronto.

We thought wrong. Ford proves again he's a different breed of cat.

The mayor said Wednesday he will not attend the Pride Parade, a week Sunday; neither will he grace the other Pride Week events with his presence. Instead he will be with his family at the cottage.

One of the problems of a black-and-white existence is the absence of grey, the inability to countenance a blurring of issues, and a stoic rejection of compromise in the face of compelling and competing arguments.

To many in Ford Nation, the hard-core conservative traditionalists who form Mayor Ford's base support, this is an attractive attribute.

It's an attribute the mayor possesses in spades.

It's also a trait that creates dissonance for a mayor, elected last October to serve Toronto's more than 2.5 million people — all of them — with their rainbow of issues, outlooks, religions, race, orientation, politics, philosophies and ethnicity.

Toronto, in all its glorious diversity, is a challenge to someone with a rigid outlook on life. Every weekend features another strand of city life. Runners take over the streets one weekend, cyclists the next, race cars the following week. Carnival-crazed Caribbeans run ahead of bobbing Bollywood boosters and grub-grazing Greeks on the Danforth ...

Toronto's festivals feature every conceivable ethnic group and race. If you are allergic to the mad cacophony of an integrated city then you don't run for mayor; you opt for a more monochromatic municipality off the beaten track.

Without doubt, Toronto's mayor must accept, no, embrace, everyone that's legally part of the community. Mayor Ford, instead, has turned his back on the city's gay and lesbian community. Not directly, mind you. Not yet. But symbolically, for sure.

Eschewing a Toronto tradition dating back to mayor Barbara Hall, the mayor said Wednesday he will not attend the Pride Parade. He said he will be going to his Huntsville cottage, instead, upholding a 30-year family tradition.

That's noble and a good thing — spending time with the family. But the mayor has another family called the City of Toronto. Surely, over 10 days of Pride events he can find time to show his face.

The natural events are the flag raising at City Hall, next Monday, when the Fords are still in town. And there's the signing of the mayor's proclamation, declaring Pride Week. He doesn't plan to attend the flag raising; he quietly signed the proclamation without fanfare.

Ford, a Christian, a strident right-wing conservative politician with very traditional views of family and sexuality and marriage, may find it anathema to endorse or give his imprimatur to events from the gay community. Many Torontonians personally would.

Former mayor Mel Lastman came to the job in 1998, the first year of amalgamation, uneasy with the gay issues. But after a chat with his son, Dale, Lastman announced he had to participate in the parade or make a lie of his promise to represent all the people of Toronto.

Ford's about cutting taxes and government and respect for taxpayer's money. He doesn't hold dearly the concept of the chief magistrate as the father of the city.

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But even his brother, Councillor Doug, recognizes that this snub will do nothing to enhance the mayor's image and change perceptions that he may be a homophobe.

“I'm going (to the parade),” Doug Ford said Wednesday, “I'm going to twist (Rob's) arm, somehow. Leave it with me.”

Royson James usually appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Email: rjames@thestar.ca