Hundreds of thousands of people from New York to San Francisco on Sunday marched to celebrate gay pride, honor those killed in the Florida gay nightclub massacre and promote tolerance.
Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton, buoyed by a double digit poll lead over Republican hopeful Donald Trump joined the tail end of the parade in New York.
She walked several blocks of the march, joining New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and Reverend Al Sharpton for a brief appearance at Stonewall Inn, the bar where a 1969 police raid helped catalyze the gay rights movement.
Photo: EPA
“LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender] Americans still face too many barriers. Let’s keep marching until they don’t,” Clinton tweeted, exactly a year after the US Supreme Court legalized gay marriage across the nation.
New York, which prides itself on being one of the most diverse cities on the planet, is the birthplace of the US gay rights movement.
Just days before the parade, US President Barack Obama designated the nation’s first LGBT national monument at the city’s Stonewall Inn, where protests erupted in 1969 following a police crackdown.
Sunday’s events, along with marches in Chicago and Seattle, were marked by tributes to the 49 people killed at the Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando on June 12.
In San Francisco, the crowd cheered and electronic music blared from floats, a group carried placards with photographs of the Florida victims, and men in leather bondage walked the route under bright sunshine.
“We have extraordinary NYPD [New York Police Department] presence to make sure that this will not only be the biggest but the safest parade we’ve ever had,” De Blasio said before a commemorative moment of silence. “We will stand up to hatred. We will stand up to those who would try to undermine our values. We believe in a society for everyone. And I have to say the response has been amazing.”
Scouts in New York City carried 49 flags with rainbow stripes to honor the victims, while another group dressed head-to-toe in white and wore veils, the names and photographs of the Orlando dead hanging around their necks.
Along the route, the newly created Gays Against Guns group staged a die-in, lying down on the hot road in a heap.
Despite somber remembrance, the parade was also a giant street party with participants dancing to thumping music, a giant arc of balloons and street vendors doing a brisk trade in all things rainbow.
Spectators donned rainbow feather boas and waved rainbow flags. Parents came with young children, tourists from overseas and exhibitionists indulged in show-stopping costumes and glittery catsuits complete with stilettos.
Organizers said they did not have final numbers on turnout, but that 32,000 marchers and more than 420 groups had been expected.
“Every parade has its own purpose, but this year’s purpose has been very profound, I would say, for not only New York City but all of the United States and I really believe the whole world,” retired teacher Pedro Lugo said.
“Tolerance is still a number one priority,” added the 56-year-old, wearing a striped rainbow shirt and draped in colored necklaces. “We are all God’s children.”
Davit Chirgadze, a 25-year-old restaurant manager from Tbilisi wearing Mickey Mouse shorts, said he flew all the way to New York just to attend Gay Pride and marry his Georgian husband, calling his country “very homophobic.”
“You can live here and have a boyfriend, girlfriend and you can have your own way without any discrimination,” he said. “To my country I want to say, ‘love each other.’”
Additional reporting by AP
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