Pride March

This weekend was one of parades and marches - on Saturday we had the Mermaid Parade in Coney Island and the Dyke March ; on Sunday the 2007 NYC LGBT Pride march. The gay pride march in NYC, produced by Heritage of Pride, is the big kahuna - marchers included mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, one of the nation's most prominent openly gay elected officials. Religious groups led the parade this year with a float from Dignity, a gay Catholic group, Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum who heads the world's largest gay synagogue, Reverend Troy Perry of the Metropolitan Community Church and a Buddhist group. A big issue at hand locally and nationally is the issue of gay marriage, so there was cause for marchers to celebrate the recent passing of a bill in the New York State Assembly legalizing same-sex marriage - Govenor Eliot Spitzer supports the bill, although it is unlikely to pass the Republican-controlled state Senate. Tens of thousands attended the march which started at 52nd Street, proceeded down Fifth Avenue turning west along 8th Street, finishing in the West Village. Spectators lined the route. At this point in time, after 38 years, the march has become an institution and in spite of the usual coterie of exhibitionists - dancers in bikini briefs, drag queens, Dykes on Bikes - and their voyeurs, the march is no longer the controversial event it once was ...