Gay parades honor victims of massacre
NEW YORK — Rainbow flags were held high along with portraits of the dead as thousands of people marched Sunday in gay pride parades tempered by this month’s massacre at a Florida gay nightclub.
Crowds of onlookers stood a dozen deep along Fifth Avenue for New York City’s parade. Some spectators held up orange “We are Orlando” signs, and indications of increased security were everywhere, with armed officers standing by.
An announcer introducing state officials and guests also shouted out, “Love is love! New York is Orlando!” in memory of the 49 people killed in Florida. Elected officials turned out in force, as did presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
She walked several blocks of the march, joining New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and Rev. Al Sharpton for a brief appearance at Stonewall Inn, the bar where a 1969 police raid helped catalyze the gay rights movement.
On Sunday, with her Twitter handle appearing in rainbow colors, Clinton wrote: “One year ago, love triumphed in our highest court. Yet LGBT Americans still face too many barriers. Let’s keep marching until they don’t. —H”
Authorities had expected a larger-than-usual crowd, and 15-year-old Chelsea Restrepo, of Staten Island, was among the onlookers. She had brushed aside her father’s concerns about security to attend the march for the first time.
“What happened in Orlando made me want to come more,” said Restrepo, swathed in a multicolored scarf. She said she wanted to show her support.
New York’s parade was one of several being held Sunday across the country, along with San Francisco, Chicago, Minneapolis and St. Louis. They came two weeks after the nation’s deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.
In Chicago, 49 marchers at the head of the parade each held aloft a postersized photograph of a different Orlando victim as the procession wound through the city. Above each photo were the words, “Never forget.”