Especially proud: Marches across country celebrate LGBT community and recent gains

NBC News ^ | 6/30/2013 | Elisha Fieldstadt

[IbJensen]

Gay Pride weekend festivities are rarely understated, but after the Supreme Court’s decisions last week, marches and rallies all over the country were expected to be especially celebratory this year.

Pride weekend generally occurs at the end of June to commemorate the Stonewall Riots, in which the gay community exploded against a police raid at the Stonewall Inn, in New York City on June 28, 1969.

After the Supreme Court’s decision on Wednesday to overturn DOMA, granting legally married same-sex couples the same federal benefits as their heterosexual counterparts, and to let "Prop. 8" die, resuming the legalization of gay marriage in California, the festive atmosphere surrounding Pride events has been ramped up several notches.

While many of the largest and most notable Pride rallies and parties occur in New York, San Francisco and Chicago, smaller but equally colorful celebrations were set to take place in Seattle, St. Louis, Cleveland and other cities throughout the U.S. and around the globe.

Although the first gay pride march was in New York, in forty-plus years, pride events have spread throughout the world. The Paris pride march also had a duel celebration purpose on Saturday, marking the one month anniversary of France’s first gay marriage. Simultaneously, LGBT groups and supporters marched in Spain, Portugal and Mexico. Canada, Sweden, and Finland held parades on Sunday.

Apropriately leading the way in New York City, was Edith Windsor — the woman who championed the fight against DOMA.

Singer Harry Belafonte and activist Earl Fowlkes, both equality and civil rights advocates, will join her in leading the two-mile march down New York's famed Fifth Avenue from Midtown to the historic Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village.

“LGBT rights are expanding across the country and these individuals embody the soul of a movement far from over,” organizers NYC Pride said in statement.

The NYPD this year increased plain-clothes patrol to deal with problems that may occur before and after the parade, officials said. The additional surveillance is in response not only to expected record-breaking crowds but also the deadly shooting of a gay man that took place just a month ago in the area that Pride-goers are set to congregate.

Progressive songstress Lady Gaga spoke out against gay violence at New York’s kickoff rally on Friday, declaring "The violence that has taken place towards LGBTs in the past months is unacceptable here and anywhere … enough is enough," according to NBCNewyork.

While the parade marks the peak of excitement in New York, marchers may have trouble trumping the grandeur of her surprise appearance and performance of her pride-centric “Star-Spangled Banner” including the line, “Oh, say does that flag of pride yet wave."

Although New York's Stonewall sparked gay pride marches, San Francisco is equally famous for its gay community, and also boasts a large and colorful pride weekend. According to NBCBayarea, San Francisco’s police chief expects over 1.5 million people to attend the parade.

"Even though the World Series was huge, this could quite possibly be larger in light of the decision that just came down from the Supreme Court — but it will be just as happy as the World Series," Police Chief Greg Suhr said. Police presence has also been bolstered in San Francisco to keep musical performances, rallies and the parade enjoyable and safe.

Meanwhile, Chicagopride.com announced that their pride weekend will also include performances, over 200 floats and of course, marchers.

According to the Chicago Transit Authority, the parade route was expanded to include more streets last year and maintains that distance this year to accommodate the greater amount of people who wish to display their pride in Chi town.

According to NBCChicago, the gay rights advocates of their city could use a joyous occasion after Illinois could not garner enough support from the house to legalize gay marriage in the state, even after a petition on Change.org and a plea from President Barack Obama to the lawmakers of his home state.

[ROCKLOBSTER]

Why do we continue to tolerate the degradation of our nation and the destruction of whatever remains of polite society?

1) TV
2) Hollywood
3) Government "schools"
4) Single mothers

[VerySadAmerican]

From no on out we need to “out” everyone we think is gay. Especially those so called straight people who are all for gay rights. Make them join the crowd.

[a fool in paradise]

The timing in these cases is suspicious. The fix is in as it was in Lawrence v. Texas.

[SECURE AMERICA]

marchers may have trouble trumping the grandeur of her surprise appearance and performance of her pride-centric “Star-Spangled Banner” including the line, “Oh, say does that flag of pride yet wave.”

No Mam. The America Flag does not fly with pride because perverts are getting special treatment in America. I feel safe in saying not one of the Founders nor anyone of the men or women that died to gain our freedom did so to benefit perverts. As an American who served during War and had a father, uncles and grand father that served in War, not one of them did so in order to allow perverts to marry. 10’s of thousands of Americans have died fighting for freedom and liberty under the American Flag and very few if any did so for perverts.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Looks like the gays have declared war on non-gays.

This will not end well.

[markneil1212]

these are the kinds of things that happen as a country disintegrates into oblivion. it was a good couple hundred years

[IbJensen]

Too bad we don’t have Putin for this one!

Instead we’ve got a Barky Cupcake running around Africa touting homosexual agendas!

We’ve not only got a mystery meat guy for a phony president, we’ve got a flaming homosexual.

[TArcher]

who would have thought

Ask the Weatherman.

 

 

Dn't need n Weatherman t see which waybama's wind

blws.

 

"Behind the Violence, Says Jane Alpert, Was Sex"

--November 09, 1981--
"The leaders of the Weather Underground, she believes, followed a similar pattern of constantly shifting sexual alliances..."

http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20080637,00.html

"He [Bill Ayers] also writes about the Weathermen's sexual experimentation as they tried to 'smash monogamy.' The Weathermen were 'an army of lovers,' he says, and describes having had different sexual partners, including his best male friend."

Source: New York Times, September 11, 2001: "No Regrets for a Love Of Explosives; In a Memoir of Sorts, a War Protester Talks of Life With the Weathermen"
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F02E1DE1438F932A2575AC0A9679C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1

"...the Weathermen, when not engaged in group sex, committed such revolutionary acts as parading with a Viet Cong flag through a local park on Independence Day and spray-painting the walls of a high school with the slogans, "Off the Pigs," "Viet Cong Will Win," and "F#$k U.S. Imperialism."..."

Campus Wars: The Peace Movement At American State Universities in the Vietnam Era

 

"What happens next bears watching closely, as does the response of the president, ex-Speaker Pelosi, and others on the left.  Encouraged by leftists in the Democratic Party and funded by left-leaning nonprofit organizations and celebrity contributors, Occupy Wall Street may in time morph into something resembling the radical factions of the late 1960s and 1970s."

http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/10/predicting_the_weatherman.html

The Osawatomie Coincidence

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2818309/posts

[matginzac]

Oh, goodie...
Let’s have “pride weekends” every weekend...we’re SO damn happy...

[little jeremiah]

Pride Goeth Before A Fall.

May the fall happen soon.

2% at most.