Thousands put pride on parade at annual event
NEW PALTZ, N.Y. » An estimated 2,000-plus people turned out Sunday for the annual gay pride parade organized by the Hudson Valley LGBTQ Community Center.
Church groups, school marching bands, moms, babies and puppies swept past onlookers and then filled Hasbrouck Park for a festival.
New Paltz gay pride marches began in 2005, during New York state’s same-sex marriage controversy.
It was that year than Jason West, then the mayor of the village of New Paltz, was threatened with 24 years in jail and heavy fines for disregarding state restrictions by officiating gay and lesbian weddings. Six years later, the New York Legislature approved same-sex marriage, with Sen. Steve Saland, RPoughkeepsie, casting the deciding vote in his chamber. The move later cost him his seat.
“The reason for pride is to establish our identity and to claim our rights as LGBTQ,” Frederic Mayo, president of the board for Hudson Valley LGBTQ Center in Kingston, said Sunday.
Ulster County Executive Michael Hein has declared June 2017 Hudson Valley Pride Month, and Gov. Andrew Cuomo issued a similar statement of support.
“Particularly in this environment, we need to take a stand, to preserve our rights and continue to move forward advocating for these causes,” Mayo said.
Longtime lesbian activist Jay Toole agreed. The 1969 Stonewall riot survivor resides in Sullivan County.
“We are all Stonewall survivors,” she indicated, also observing that the Stonewall protests against police harassment at a New York City gay bar — which sparked the modern gay rights movement — included allies from every minority group. “Everybody was there. It wasn’t just a bunch of white people doing this rebellion. Hundreds of people showed up to say. ‘No, we’re not going to take it anymore.”
Toole said she was arrested more than 20 times for dressing like a man.
“The law back then was you had to have three articles of female clothing on, and I never did, so I was always being arrested,” she recalled
“It’s wonderful to see how far we’ve come,” she said, “but we have to remember the fight isn’t over until everybody has their rights.”
Drag queen Timothy Bruck Jr. of Accord, also known as Pinky Socrates, marched in the front lines this year, accompanied by parents who assist with his festival booth and stage show management.
“This parade is exactly what the queer community is all about — not having shame, embracing who you are, and being so proud to show that to the entire world,” Buck said. “I am looking exactly how I want to, without a care in the world about what people think about me.
“But that’s not true,” he added. “Please don’t criticize my [eye]lashes.”