Gay Pride Parade Kicked Off in New YorkThree dozen gay couples celebrated their same-sex partnerships Sunday to kick off New York City's 32nd annual gay pride parade, a celebration of flamboyant costumes and floats.The parade included lesbians on motorcycles, a rainbow arch of balloons and a top-down convertible carrying veterans of the 1969 Stonewall riots, in which patrons of a gay bar in Greenwich Village fought back against a police raid. The parade to mark the event has grown over the years to a colorful pageant drawing hundreds of thousands of participants and spectators, and has been replicated in cities around the world. In Europe, Paris and Berlin celebrated gay pride on Saturday with rollicking parades. At the center of the festivities were the cities' mayors, both openly gay. About 1 million people dressed in everything from feathered boas to skintight leather gathered in San Francisco for that city's 31st Annual Pride Parade and Celebration, the state's largest public event. But the drag queens in sequined dresses and feathers and young men in tight shorts were a bit much for some tourists. In Chicago, organizers expected approximately 350,000 to attend what has become one of the largest parades in the city. In Atlanta, thousands of people, including several mayoral candidates, participated in the city's 31st Gay Pride celebration, which wrapped up Sunday with a parade along the city's main artery, Peachtree Street. |
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