Opponents of gay marriage often sounded as if they believed allowing marriage equality would lead to some sort of massive gay takeover of everything. Now that the courts have ruled against such ridiculous opposition, it’s probably best if you don’t tell the Thom Tillis types that Big Gay Ice Cream is coming to Raleigh on Saturday, Oct. 18. It might give them the vapors.

For the rest of us though, that is welcome news indeed. Big Gay Ice Cream got its start in 2009 as a New York-based food truck before eventually opening shops in the East Village in 2011 and the West Village in 2012. It earned a spot on Dessert Professional’s 2012 “10 Best Ice Cream Parlors” list. A year later The Daily Beast and USA Today declared Big Gay Ice Cream the fifth best parlor in the world, ranking it ahead of every other parlor in the United States. More shops are opening in Los Angeles and Philadelphia this year.

Celebrating its fifth anniversary, Big Gay Ice Cream teams with the Southern Foodways Alliance for a five-state Southern tour that returns to the brand’s food-truck roots. Saturday’s visit to Poole’s Downtown Diner will be the first of those tour stops. Appearances in Charleston, South Carolina; Atlanta, Georgia; Birmingham, Alabama; and Oxford, Mississippi, will follow. The Oxford visit will be in conjunction with the 2014 Southern Foodways symposium on “Who Is Welcome at the Welcome Table?” asking questions about inclusion and exclusion in the modern South, while factoring in ethnicity, sexuality, diet, class, gender and race.

Big Gay Ice Cream’s food truck will be serving some of its most well-known flavors as it rolls through the South. Customers can choose from such soft-serve delights as the Salty Pimp, which is injected with dulce de leche, sprinkled with sea salt and dipped in chocolate; the Godzilla, which is rolled in wasabi pea dust; and the Bea Arthur, which is injected with dulce de leche and rolled in crushed Nilla Wafers. There will also be less adventurous flavor options available.

Big Gay Ice Cream will be in Raleigh on Saturday, Oct. 18, from approximately 3 p.m. to 10 p.m. at Poole’s Downtown Diner, 426 S. McDowell Street.