Mixed Tone for Gay March : Celebration of Pride Contrasts With Concern Over AIDS Epidemic

The festively flamboyant marched alongside somber reminders of the AIDS epidemic Sunday in the 19th annual Gay and Lesbian Pride Parade that drew tens of thousands to the streets of West Hollywood.

The parade down Santa Monica Boulevard started with the release of hundreds of purple and white balloons, inscribed with the words “I Love You” in memory of people who have died of AIDS.

The theme of this year’s march, which ended a weekend street festival, was “Rightfully Proud”--what organizers called a party to celebrate being gay.

The mounted Golden State Gay Rodeo Assn. led about 240 floats and contingents that included Mayor Tom Bradley and Los Angeles and West Hollywood City Council members. Members of Lambda Delta Lambda, a lesbian sorority at UCLA, and Delta Lambda Phi, the campus’ homosexual fraternity, were grand marshals.

Epidemic Strikes Sad Note

As in recent years, acquired immune deficiency syndrome was a dominant theme of Sunday’s event.

A group of about 60 people who, organizers said, have tested positive for the AIDS virus, including one in a wheelchair, rode by in a boat-shaped float. Other participants waved signs to protest November ballot initiatives relating to AIDS, which activists label as anti-gay.

Later, an activist group called Act Up, its members wearing black and white T-shirts and waving signs that read “Silence Equals Death,” marched past; several threw themselves to the ground and drew chalk outlines to represent dead bodies. They were followed by people carrying white wooden crosses with names of AIDS victims who have died.

“Join together to put an end to prejudice, bigotry and, most of all, AIDS,” proclaimed parade announcer Kathy Apple, whose voice cracked at one point when a passing contingent paid homage to a friend of hers who had succumbed to AIDS.

But Gary Jonker, president of the gay activist organization Christopher Street West, which sponsored the parade, said concern over AIDS cannot be allowed to overshadow all elements of life in the gay and lesbian community.

“It can’t become an all-consuming factor in the community,” he said. “If so, there would be no pride . . . There are a lot of other things in our community besides AIDS.”

Both those who fit stereotypes and those who run counter to them joined in the parade.

A decidedly serious gay-issues lobbying group was followed in the parade by a float carrying the gold-spangled, scantily clad gyrating cast members of a nightclub floor show. A female impersonator blowing kisses to the crowd was followed minutes later by associations of lawyers, physicians and other professionals.

Men in black leather on motorcycles and the famous “Dykes on Bikes” drove by, not long after older couples marched to announce pride and love for their homosexual children. “Our son is gay, and that’s OK,” read one woman’s sign.

“This breaks down the (stereotypical) barriers, shows you’ve got all kinds of people, who are just like you or I,” said Jamie Henderson, assistant director of a food bank program for people with AIDS.

Diversity in the Crowd

The crowd, which a Los Angeles County sheriff’s spokesman estimated at 150,000, lined both sides of the street. People stretched out in lawn chairs, soaked up the intense sun and drank beer or soft drinks. Many couples held hands, while other couples had their pet dogs or children in tow.

A handful of Christian fundamentalist protesters stood at one side of the parade, chanting “You’re a pervert” and “How about Jesus today?” They wore white protective suits with hoods, goggles and masks and carried a huge black and white banner that said, “Turn or burn.”

The Los Angeles parade, which marks the anniversary of a June, 1965, confrontation in New York’s Greenwich Village between police and gay activists, coincided with similar celebrations in San Francisco and New York.

An estimated 160,000 marched in the Gay Freedom Parade down San Francisco’s Market Street, while about 100,000 people participated in the New York City version.