To Irene Miller, who will march down Church St. on Sunday with moms, dads, sisters and brothers, Mayor Rob Ford’s absence would be a declaration.

“He would be choosing his family over our family,” says the president of PFLAG (Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) Toronto, who waits in vain for Ford to answer her invitation to the Pride parade.

“We’re a safe place to march. We’re moms and dads wearing lots of suntan lotion, T-shirts and sensible shoes,” she said, adding it’s vital to send a message of equality to gays and straights.

“One in 10 hands he shakes every day are probably LGTB (lesbian, gay, transsexual or bisexual), and probably three or four in 10 know and support someone who is gay. I think he should represent every single person in the city.”

After Ford nonchalantly refused to commit to any Pride activities beyond a proclamation signed behind closed doors, he was caught off-guard by the resulting uproar.

His team scrambled to a “family values” narrative — the super-busy mayor was heading north for a few days to spend Canada Day with his clan. “My family comes first,” Ford told reporters. Added his mother Diane: “He just wants to spend time with his family.”

Despite the fact that Pride spans 10 days — and that Ford has a history of brow-raising statements about gays — the public comments on talk radio, blogs and news websites this week suggest his strategy has worked, somewhat.

The truth is that Toronto’s mayor is uncomfortable with the idea of being at a gay gathering, a source close to Ford told the Star. The mayor spurned advice to make a gesture in order to relieve the pressure, said the source, who would not speculate on the cause of Ford’s discomfort.

While Ford was on the defensive, fending off accusations of homophobia and offers to fly him from his cottage to Pride, some of his conservative cousins in the U.S. were reframing the family values issue as an argument in favour of gay rights — with historic results.

Ken Mehlman, the former U.S. Republican Party chair who led George W. Bush’s successful 2004 re-election campaign, helped convince four New York state senators to switch sides and tipped the balance in last week’s vote to legalize same-sex marriage in the Empire State.

“There’s a strong Republican and conservative case to be made in favour of the right to marry,” Mehlman, who last year stunned many in his party by announcing he is gay, told New York Republican leaders in May, according to The Daily Beast website.

“If we are all endowed by a creator with unalienable rights including the pursuit of happiness, how can that not include marrying the person you love?”

David Frum, the Toronto-raised, Washington-based Republican commentator, reacted to the vote by declaring in print that he had been wrong to oppose gay unions.

“If people like me had been right, we should have seen the American family become radically more unstable over the subsequent decade and a half,” Frum wrote. “Instead — while American family stability has continued to deteriorate — it has deteriorated much more slowly than it did in the 1970s and 1980s before same-sex marriage was ever seriously thought of.”

Other Republicans, including billionaire hedge fund founder Paul Singer, whose son is gay, aided a behind-the-scenes lobbying effort orchestrated by Andrew Cuomo, the state’s Democratic governor.

Last Sunday, while Ford hunkered down, Cuomo got a conquering hero’s welcome at his own city’s Pride parade.

“The love in the air was off the hook,” said Raymond Miller, Irene Miller’s gay son, who moved to New York to pursue his acting career.

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In Toronto, among the loud calls, there have been more private ones from influential citizens, many focusing on family. They included a meeting Monday between Ford and Toronto Maple Leafs general manager Brian Burke, who talked about his late son Brendan. The Burkes spoke out against homophobia in professional sports after Brendan, a university hockey manager, publicly revealed he was gay.

But, as Pride week winds down, Ford appears unmoved.

“If that is not a compelling heartfelt story about what it’s like to be gay, what will get through to the mayor, what will make his heart beat?,” asked Kristyn Wong-Tam (Ward 27, Toronto Centre-Rosedale), the gay councillor who has lobbied Ford.

“We are not asking our mayor to change laws — all he has to do is show up, get hugged by a drag queen and he’s on his way.”

Ford’s office declined the Star’s request for an interview.

Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti, one of Ford’s staunch allies on council, said everyone should just back off.

Pride is a wonderful event that brings a lot of money into the city. But a festival “that celebrates choice” shouldn’t be pressuring the mayor to attend, he said.

“I haven’t heard from anybody in the grassroots community say that the Pride community is right,” said Mammoliti (Ward 7, York West). “If anything they’re saying that they’re irritated by what the Pride community is saying.

“Some people chose to make it political and the reality is we have bigger things to talk about, like where are we going to get our money for 2012, to deal with our $700 million deficit?

“There are two feet of grass in our parks and we’ve got to figure out how to pay for city services. I would say to everyone, ‘You’ve made your pitch — now leave it that.’”