Full of pride at First Minister leading parade
NICOLA Sturgeon became the first serving head of government in the UK to lead an LGBTI pride march at the weekend, when she headed up the biggest Pride Glasgow parade as the honorary Grand Marshal.
While Trump was busy promoting his own brand of hatred from Scotland, our First Minister was leading a march of tens of thousands in support of equality, human rights and respect. The contrast could not have been clearer.
Wearing a rainbow-emblazoned Choose Love T-shirt, Sturgeon stood side by side with thousands of people, young and old, from across Scotland to show the world that love always trumps hate.
Speaking on stage at the end of the march, she celebrated the advances we’ve made and pledged the SNP Government will deliver further progress on equality – for example, for the transgender community – just as we did with equal marriage, hate crime, same-sex adoption and Turing laws.
That is something every Scot can be proud of.
Perhaps more important than any of that was the simple but powerful message of being there in solidarity – telling the crowd they were beautiful and should be proud of who they are.
Many LGBTI people growing up in the 80s and 90s, or before, would simply never have imagined a political leader marching alongside them. Scotland can be proud of how much we’ve changed for the better.