Gay Pride Parades sound a note of resistance, and face some

June 26, 2017 Associated Press

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, bottom center, marches during the New York City Pride Parade on Sunday. AP Photo/Andres Kudacki

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Tens of thousands of people waving rainbow flags lined streets for gay pride parades Sunday in coast-to-coast events that took both celebratory and political tones, the latter a reaction to what some see as new threats to gay rights in the Trump era.

At the jam-packed New York City parade, a few attendees wore “Make America Gay Again” hats, while one group walking silently in the parade wore “Black Lives Matter” shirts as they held up signs with a fist and with a rainbow background, a symbol for gay pride. Still, others protested potential cuts to heath care benefits, declaring that “health care is an LGBT issue.”

“I think this year is even more politically charged, even though it was always a venue where people used it to express their political perspectives,” said Joannah Jones, 59, from New York with her wife Carol Phillips.

She said the parade being televised for the first time gives people a wider audience. “Not only to educate people in general on the diversity of LGBTQ community but also to see how strongly we feel about what’s going on in office.”

Elected officials also made a stand, among them New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who said his state would continue to lead on equality. Cuomo, a Democrat, on Sunday formally appointed Paul G. Feinman to the New York Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court. Feinman is the first openly gay judge to hold the position.

But the pride celebrations also faced some resistance from within the LGBT community itself. Some activists feel the events center on gay white men and are unconcerned with issues including economic inequality and policing.

New York paradegoers Zhane Smith-Garris, 20; Olivia Rengifo, 19; and Sierra Dias, 20, all black women from New Jersey, said they did not feel there was inequality in the movement.

“Pride is for gay people in general,” Dias said.

There were scattered counter protests and a few disruptions, including a small group in New York urging parade-goers to “repent for their sins.” But most attending were unified in celebration and in standing up against a presidential administration they find unsupportive.

“This year, especially, it’s a bit of a different atmosphere,” said Grace Cook, a 17-year-old from suburban Chicago who noted the more political tone in this year’s parade, including at least one anti-Trump float.

—Associated Press writers Rebecca Gibian, Colleen Long, Olga R. Rodriguez and Martha Irvine contributed to this report.