Gay-pride parades celebrate same-sex marriage victories

Associated Press

NEW YORK

Gay-pride parades stepped off around the nation Sunday, in cities large and small, with gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people and their supporters celebrating a year of same-sex marriage victories.

New York’s Fifth Avenue became one giant rainbow as thousands of participants waved multicolored flags while making their way down the street. Politicians including Mayor Bill de Blasio and Gov. Andrew Cuomo were among those walking along a lavender line painted on the avenue from midtown Manhattan to the West Village.

The parade marked the 45th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, the 1969 uprising against police raids that were a catalyst for the gay-rights movement. The parade route passes The Stonewall Inn, the site of the riots.

In Chicago, as many as 1 million people were expected to pack the streets of the city’s North Side for the first gay pride parade since Illinois legalized gay marriage last month.

Charlie 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.

“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. “I think it is a huge thing, and everybody’s over the moon that they can do it now.”

A year ago, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a pair of landmark rulings, one striking down the statute that denied federal recognition to same-sex marriages and the other clearing the way for gay couples to wed legally in California.

In the 12 months since then, the ripple effects of those rulings have transformed the national debate over same-sex marriage, convincing many people on both sides of the contentious issue that its spread nationwide is inevitable.