California Adds to Rally’s Voice, Strength : March: Several representatives from the state speak from the podium while thousands of others travel to Washington to take part in the demonstration.

Thousands of Californians participated in Sunday’s gay and lesbian march on Washington, hoping, like their counterparts from across the nation, to lower barriers against homosexuals in the same way the landmark 1963 civil rights march furthered the cause of black Americans.

“For people to understand why we should have the same civil rights as they do, they need to see us,” said Diane Abbitt, a Los Angeles lawyer who is active in lesbian causes. “We are people who are just like you.”

John Alexander, marching with the Different Strokes swimming group from San Diego, put it this way: “It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity. Numbers do make a difference.”

Actress Cybill Shepherd, one of many heterosexuals who came to show solidarity with the marchers, told the throng assembled on the Mall: “Everyone in our nation belongs here today.”

And a 32-year-old office worker from North Hollywood, who identified herself only as Susan, said she scrimped to save $1,500 in travel expenses to make a statement on behalf of lesbians.

“It’s to tell the world that we exist and we’re not going away,” she said. “To celebrate and get our rights as human beings.”

Speaking from the podium, David Mixner of Los Angeles put the same sentiment in more exalted words.

“We are here to give testimony to our own resolve and determination to be free at last of the slavery of discrimination and hatred,” said Mixner, a former campaign adviser to President Clinton. “Our people are willing to make sacrifices so never again will they have to face the terror of losing their jobs.”

During the rally, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), a mother of five and a strong supporter of gay rights, read a letter from Clinton in which the President repeated his commitment to ending discrimination against gays and lesbians.

California’s two new senators--Democrats Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer--did not attend the march and instead joined a gathering of Democratic senators near Jamestown, Va.

Torie Osborn of Los Angeles, the new executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, was on the steering committee for the march.

While it was impossible to get a firm count on the number of Californians in the march, organizers estimated a turnout ranging from 80,000 to 160,000.

Scott Hitt, a Los Angeles doctor active in AIDS causes and head of a gay-lesbian political fund, said Sunday that estimates from travel agents and march officials indicated that 40,000 people came from Southern California and an equal number from the northern part of the state, particularly the Bay Area.

“Our mood is great,” Hitt said. “Our hope and expectation is that America sees us as a diverse community that has organized for a common goal.”

Hitt called a proposed national gay and lesbian civil rights bill a top priority in Congress, while march organizers also listed an end to the military ban on gays and more emphasis on AIDS research among their major goals.

Mixner, who helped organize anti-war protests during the Vietnam War era, put the meaning of the march another way: “The message is the sheer determination of this community not to go backward.”

Despite their relatively large numbers, the Californians appeared to get lost in the gigantic demonstration. They did not fare so well in the line of march, coming far behind the front ranks.

Some participants from the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Service Center became discouraged and made a beeline for the Mall, where the parade ended, rather than wait for hours to follow the route past the White House and down Pennsylvania Avenue toward the Capitol.

But the story of California’s participation in the event was less in the numbers than in the personal accounts of the marchers.

Paul Lerner, 32, of North Hollywood, recalled being so angry during a 1987 gay-rights march that he challenged police and was arrested in an act of civil disobedience.

“The mood is much more celebratory and hopeful now,” Lerner said. “There’s a palpable sense that we have arrived.”

The election of Clinton, he added, gave rise to hopes of greater progress than the gay community achieved during the Ronald Reagan-George Bush years.

“We recognize that he (Clinton) is the best friend we ever had in the White House,” Lerner said.

Another marcher, 25-year-old Ron Cortes of West Hollywood, said he also believes that the nation is now more open to change.

“If there’s one time in our lives we should be here, it’s now,” Cortes said.

Marching with a Latino delegation, Lourddes Arguelles, a professor of gender and Chicano studies at Pitzer College in Claremont, said she was impressed by the number of Latin American countries represented.

“It’s truly an intercultural event,” she said. “I came to support the right of people to live the lives they have chosen to live.”

John Padilla of San Diego, marching with the Great American Yankee Freedom band as it blared its way along Pennsylvania Avenue, said he was glad to be counted with other members of a “happy to be here” crowd.

Sounding a note of solidarity with fellow gays and lesbians, he said: “If nothing else, it bolsters our own spirits. It makes you feel you’re not alone.”