Al Sharpton at the Pride Parade

Is this weird? For the first time ever, Al Sharpton marched in the Pride parade. I just saw this on the news:

Journalist: On a more serious note, Reverend Al Sharpton for the first
time took part in the parade, he says a must given the disproportionately high
number of African -Americans, specifically women, suffering from AIDS.

Reverend Al Sharpton: While we celebrate life, we are in an unusual crisis
of HIV-AIDS in the city.

As in, he's marching in the Pride parade because of the AIDS crisis? He's not marching because he's showing support for the community, but because we need to call attention to the AIDS Crisis -- and he chooses to raise awareness by marching in the Pride parade? Not by marching in the other non-LGBT-pride-but-ethnic-pride-nonetheless parades, like that pro-Israel march or the St. Patrick's Day parade or the Italian pride thing? Mmm... marching only in the Gay Pride parade as a political gesture to raise awareness about AIDS ... Isn't that a little close to the way it was in the early 80s, when ignorant people referred to AIDS as the "gay disease" and called it GRID?

I dunno. I totally just watched "And the Band Played On" so it's at the tippy toppy of my brain...