[Dryerase] AGR Millions celebrate gay pride worldwide

[Shawn G]

Asheville Global Report (www.agrnews.org)

Millions celebrate gay pride worldwide

By Brendan Conley

July 1 (AGR)— From Asheville to Zagreb, millions of people throughout the 
world participated in gay pride celebrations over the June 29-30 weekend.  
Lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgendered people, and their supporters 
marched in parades, celebrating their queerness and standing up for gay 
rights.  The events ranged from giant festivals that were embraced by the 
establishment to tense protest marches where participants endured attacks 
and harassment.

New York City hosted one of the world’s largest gay pride parades, with an 
estimated one million people participating, appropriate for the city that 
can call itself the birthplace of the modern gay rights movement.  Most gay 
pride events are held at the end of June to commemorate the 1969 Stonewall 
Rebellion, in which patrons of the Stonewall Inn led days of riots to 
protest a police raid of the Greenwich Village gay bar. Thirty-three years 
later, New York’s gay pride parade was led by the mayor, Michael Bloomberg. 
State legislators vowed to work toward the legalization of same-sex 
marriage.  The event began with a mass wedding in Central Park, with clergy 
of various faiths blessing the unions of more than 50 same-sex couples.  The 
march proceeded down Fifth Avenue to Greenwich Village.

In Toronto, more than 100 floats paraded through the city’s Gay Village as 
more than a million people braved scorching heat for the annual gay pride 
celebrations.  One participant was Marc Hall, a 17 year old who sued his 
school board for the right to bring his boyfriend to the prom.

In San Francisco, where more than a million people took part in the 
celebrations, Dykes on Bikes led a spirited parade through the Castro 
district.  The participants honored Jon Cook, who became the first openly 
gay police officer to die in the line of duty when he was killed in an 
automobile accident two weeks ago, chasing a domestic violence suspect.

Other celebrations took place in Chicago, Minneapolis, Paris, and Dublin.

The events in North America and Western Europe seemed to walk a fine line 
between celebration and protest.  Some activists decried the 
commercialization of gay pride.  In Atlanta, where 300,000 people took part, 
the corporate-sponsored events resembled other large cultural festivals, 
with corporations, local businesses, and politicians vying for attention.  
While the Coors brewing company sponsored the festival, maintaining a 
monopoly on beer sold in Piedmont Park, activist groups ran full-page ads in 
a local newspaper urging a boycott of the company over its “anti-gay” 
policies.

In Asheville, North Carolina, anti-capitalist protesters joined with queer 
folk to march through the streets.  In Seattle, while gay police officers, 
firefighters, and politicians took part in the official gay pride 
celebrations, the Seattle Fruit Brigade held an “anti-corporate, pro-freak” 
alternative event.  In San Francisco last month, activists created a “Gay 
Shame” event to critique the commercialization of the mainstream gay pride 
movement.

In other parts of the world, gay activists fought repression and harassment.

In Israel, tight security and the tension of war affected the festivities. 
Tel Aviv, which boasts the country’s largest gay community, hosted a parade 
of hundreds of lesbians and gays.  In Jerusalem, activists overcame a 
hostile local government and Orthodox Jewish protesters to declare “Love 
Without Borders” in the city’s first ever gay pride event.  Many gay 
Israelis linked their cause with the struggle against the occupation of the 
Palestinian territories.  “Free Condoms, Free Palestine” read one sign.

In Latin America, gay activists marched to demand equal rights.  Thousands 
marched through the streets of Mexico City, with the theme “For the right to 
be different, a society of coexistence.”  In Venezuela, where homosexuals 
are often fired from their jobs if their sexual orientation is discovered, 
an estimated 1,200 protesters marched through Caracas.  One of the biggest 
gay pride events in Latin America took place in Sao Paulo, Brazil earlier in 
June.  The march of about 400,000 people was led by the city’s mayor, the 
left-wing sexologist Marta Suplicy.

In Zagreb, Croatia, about 200 gays and lesbians marched through the center 
of the city, as riot cops held back hundreds of angry protesters.  At one 
point, a tear gas canister was tossed at the marchers, but no one was 
injured.





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