“I think it is a huge thing, and everybody’s over the moon that they can do it now.” “I think there is definitely like an even more sense of pride now knowing that in Illinois you can legally get married now,” Gurion said as he posed for photograph after photograph with Wilk at the parade. Parades outside New York City drew crowds as well. In Chicago, as many as 1 million people packed the streets of the city’s North Side for the first gay pride parade since Illinois legalized gay marriage last month.Ĭharlie Gurion, who with David Wilk in February became the first couple in Cook County to get a same-sex marriage license, said there was a different feel to the parade this year. “This is my first trip to NYC, and it’s awesome.” Santiago said. Wearing a bow tie and sporting a rainbow flag on her belt loop, she walked near Christopher Street with two friends, a broad smile on her face.
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In Greenwich Village, a historic hub of gay culture in the city, Jessica Santiago, a 25 year-old lesbian from Wilmington, Delaware, was enjoying her first trip to the city’s pride march. We are happy because we are here and can express ourselves, but we are very sad that people are treated as second-class citizens in the former Soviet Union,” said Goltsman, who was born in Ukraine and immigrated to the U.S. Goltsman condemned Russia’s criminalization of the “promotion” of “gay propaganda,” which advocates say enables arrests, fines and deportation of people who support LGBT rights.Ī Human Rights Campaign report released Friday to mark the first anniversary of the law’s passage details incidents of violence and discrimination against LGBT people since the law came into effect. More than 100 people marched Sunday with RUSA LGBT in support of gay rights in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Yelena Goltsman, who in 2008 founded RUSA LGBT, a group for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people from states of the former Soviet Union, said that although she’s happy to attend the pride march, the joy of the day was diluted by the struggle of her counterparts in Russia, who face police violence, gang attacks and discriminatory laws. While gay rights advocates have made significant gains in the United States, anti-gay laws in countries such as Uganda, which criminalizes homosexuality with punishments as severe as life imprisonment, and anti-gay mob attacks in Nigeria underscore that the global struggle for freedom isn’t over. “If we were all the same, that would be really messed up.”īut for some paradegoers, the day is a reminder that the fight for social justice is not over for many in the international gay community. Originally from Branchville, Virginia, and now living in Brooklyn, he said he sees the parade as a chance for people to be who they really are. Mike Jones, 58, who is straight, has sold rainbow flags and trinkets at pride marches for the last 10 years. His friend Jaimie McKeaveney, 23, who is bisexual and also from Middle Island, declared, “Everybody deserves equal rights,” when asked why she was attending the parade. Pers said he never thought he’d see a world where LGBT people could be as open about their sexuality as they are at pride festivities. “This generation has no idea the fight we had to endure.” But, he added, “I’m happy they don’t have to struggle.” “I had to fear for my life,” said Vinny Pers, 53, from Middle Island, New York. Many in the crowd remembered when life for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender New Yorkers wasn’t as easy as it is now. On Sunday a group of police marched in the parade, and thousands of officers lined Manhattan’s streets, directing traffic, pedestrians and conversing with paradegoers. The corner where the Truskowskis drank beer and relaxed with friends was, 45 years earlier, the scene of a violent confrontations between the New York Police Department and men at the Stonewall Inn after the police raided the bar and beat patrons.
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It’s just great to be out and see all this energy and all this excitement.”
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“It’s really important that we are visible. Truskowski was there with his husband, Michael, whom he wed after New York state legalized gay marriage in 2011. We’ve been coming for the last five years,” said Will Truskowski, 36, a paralegal from the borough of Queens. On packed sidewalks, revelers adorned with rainbow flags and balloons cheered on the marchers. More than a million people marched in support of gay pride in New York City on Sunday, commemorating the 45th anniversary of the Stonewall Inn riots while celebrating recent strides against bans on same-sex marriage across the United States.Įvery year, the parade passes the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, where police and gay men clashed in 1969.