Spirit of Achievement Marks Gay Pride Parade : Celebration: Signs of public acceptance, political arrival are abundant as officials and police in uniform take part. But campy routines remain in the event’s 24th year.

Twenty-five years ago, almost all gay police officers, doctors, lawyers, judges and elected officials were still ensconced in their closets. There were no gay and lesbian pride parades, and nobody had ever heard of AIDS.

What a difference a quarter of a century makes.

These were the signs of change Sunday at the 24th annual pride parade in West Hollywood:

Gay and lesbian officers of the Los Angeles Police Department marched in uniform for the first time, receiving spirited applause from about 250,000 spectators who packed the sidewalks for two miles along Santa Monica Boulevard between Crescent Heights and Robertson boulevards.

Mothers walked hand-in-hand with their sons--and their sons’ lovers--carrying placards that said: “We Love our Gay and Lesbian Children,” while a tot in a stroller toted a poster proclaiming, “I My Gay Grandpa.”

Dozens of convertibles wheeled by, brimming with gay judges, prosecutors, lawyers, scientists and clergy. There was even a float announcing a new gay traffic school.

While cross-dressing and campy routines remain parade staples, the signs of growing political empowerment in the “Gay Nineties” were everywhere.

Tony Miller, California’s acting secretary of state and the first openly gay candidate to receive a major party’s nomination for a statewide office in California, was in one convertible. And another carried Sheila James Kuehl, the feminist attorney, law professor and former television star who seeks to represent the Westside, Malibu and part of the San Fernando and Conejo valleys in the Assembly.

Los Angeles City Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg was honored as Woman of the Year.

And, while Mayor Richard Riordan scored political points when he rode in last year’s parade, he left this year’s duty to the gay members of his cabinet--David Novak and Deputy Mayors Mike Keeley and Dave Cobb, who waved from a convertible identifying them as “GIMOS”--gays in the mayor’s office.

“It’s quite a transition,” mused Michael Yates, president of Christopher Street West/Los Angeles, which has sponsored the pride parade since 1970. “It started out very social, through the bars, and now we’re being represented (in public offices) by our own people.”

The 25th anniversary of the Stonewall riots next month provided the theme for the parade, and some historical perspective. The four-night melee was triggered by a routine police raid of the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York City’s Greenwich Village and gave birth to the fledgling gay and lesbian civil rights movement.

In Los Angeles a year later, the first gay pride parade commemorating the riots had difficulty winning permits from reluctant police and city officials.

Although gay rights now have won acceptance from mainstream politicians, Yates said, the agenda is incomplete. At the top of the “to do” list, he said, is winning funding for AIDS research and passage of California’s domestic partners legislation.

“We enjoy who we are, our culture,” Yates said. “We’ve tried to develop a celebratory atmosphere.”