Gay Pride Is Celebrated From Coast to Coast
Drag queens and dignitaries shared Fifth Avenue in the annual Gay Pride Parade, known as much for its politics as its revelry.
Gays also marched Sunday in parades in San Francisco, Chicago and Atlanta.
New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and U.S. Senate candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton marched in Sunday’s event in New York, but Clinton’s new Republican rival, Rep. Rick Lazio, chose to spend the day campaigning upstate instead.
Political victories were celebrated as activists pointed to passage of a hate-crimes bill in Albany and a Vermont law that allows civil unions between homosexuals.
“It’s a tremendously significant year,” said lesbian activist and former White House aide Virginia Appuzzo, one of the Heritage of Pride Parade’s grand marshals. “The changes have been dazzling.”
The parade, which commemorates the 1969 uprising at the Stonewall Inn credited with sparking the modern gay rights movement, was led by Stonewall veterans in drag riding behind a rainbow of balloons stretched across Fifth Avenue.
Sunday’s parade proceeded from the waterfront to City Hall, where a seven-hour party awaited. Numerous celebrities made appearances.
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