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| Tina Hitscherich surprises a police officer with a kiss during the NYC Pride Parade in New York, Sunday, June 26, 2016. With a moment of silence followed by the roar of motorcycles, New York City's gay pride parade kicked off Sunday, a celebration of barriers breached and a remembrance of the lives lost in the massacre at the gay nightclub in Orlando. |
NEW YORK
(AP) -- Rainbow flags were held high along with portraits of the dead
as thousands of people marched Sunday in gay pride parades tempered by
this month's massacre at a Florida gay nightclub.
Crowds
of onlookers stood a dozen deep along Fifth Avenue for New York City's
parade. Some spectators held up orange "We are Orlando" signs, and
indications of increased security were everywhere, with armed officers
standing by. An announcer introducing state officials and guests also
shouted out, "Love is love! New York is Orlando!" in memory of the 49
people killed in Florida. Elected officials turned out in force, as did
presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
She
walked several blocks of the march, joining New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo,
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and Rev. Al Sharpton for a brief
appearance at Stonewall Inn, the bar where a 1969 police raid helped
catalyze the gay rights movement.
On Sunday,
with her Twitter handle appearing in rainbow colors, Clinton wrote: "One
year ago, love triumphed in our highest court. Yet LGBT Americans still
face too many barriers. Let's keep marching until they don't. -H"
Authorities
had expected a larger-than-usual crowd, and 15-year-old Chelsea
Restrepo, of Staten Island, was among the onlookers. She had brushed
aside her father's concerns about security to attend the march for the
first time.
"What happened in Orlando made me
want to come more," said Restrepo, swathed in a multicolored scarf. She
said she wanted to show her support.
Kenny Hillman, a 39-year-old Brooklyn filmmaker, was ready to roar his Triumph Bonneville down Fifth Avenue.
The transgender New Yorker said he hadn't planned to come to the march.
"For
me, I wasn't going to ride because I have 17-month-old twins at home.
But then Orlando happened, and seeing so many of my friends shrink in
fear made me realize that coming here was more important," said Hillman,
wearing an anti-assault guns T-shirt.
New
York's parade was one of several being held Sunday across the country,
along with San Francisco, Chicago, Minneapolis and St. Louis. They came
two weeks after the nation's deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S.
history.
In Chicago, 49 marchers at the head
of the parade each held aloft a poster-sized photograph of a different
Orlando victim as the procession wound through the city. Above each
photo were the words, "Never forget."
Despite
the somber start, parade-goers seemed as enthusiastic as ever once
marchers and floats began
moving, cheering and dancing along the route.
Many participants said the tributes to the dead in Orlando didn't dampen
the energy and fun associated with the pride parade.
"It
is another on a list of brutalities over the years (against gays),"
said Joe Conklin, 74, of Chicago, as he sat on the back of a float
waiting for the OK to move out. "We're aware of Orlando but not
overwhelmed by it."
It was a similar feeling
in San Francisco, where men in glittery white wings walked on stilts and
women in leather pants rode motorcycles as the parade moved along.
Richel
Desamparado, of Oakland, California, was marching and carrying a photo
of Orlando victim Stanley Almodovar. She said she felt the need to
remind people the fight for equality is not over. "A lot of my gay
friends and relatives are still being shunned away by their families and
communities," said Desamparado, 31.
"People need to remember we're
still fighting for equality."
Sunday's parades
did have a new milestone to mark: President Barack Obama on Friday
designated the site
around New York City's Stonewall Inn as the first
national monument to gay rights.
Security was
ramped up at the events. New York police deployed roving
counterterrorism units and used bomb-sniffing dogs, rooftop observation
posts, police helicopters and thousands of officers to provide extra
layers of security at Sunday's parade. Thousands of uniformed officers
lined the route, supplemented by plainclothes officers in the crowd.
San
Francisco spectators faced metal detectors for the first time, and more
police than usual were keeping watch. Some participants didn't
welcoming the stepped-up security: Two honorary grand marshals and a
health clinic that serves sex workers withdrew Friday from the parade to
protest the heavy police presence.
Chicago
police put 200 more officers than usual on duty for the city's pride
parade Sunday. Organizers nearly doubled their corps of private security
agents, to 160.
At a gay street parade in
Turkey, a prominent German lawmaker and outspoken gay rights advocate
was temporarily detained Sunday when he wanted to speak publicly at the
end of Pride Week. Turkish police have repeatedly in recent days
prevented activists from participating in LGBT rallies.
For all the security and solemnity, some spectators at pride parades this month have made a point of making merry.
"We
had fun. That is what gay people do," comedian Guy Branum wrote in a
New York Times essay after attending the West Hollywood parade. "Our
answer to loss and indignity, it seems, is to give a party, have a
parade and celebrate bits of happiness."
