Pride march expected to draw large crowd

The annual event on Sunday, which dates to 2005, will be followed by a festival in Hasbrouck Park.

New Paltz’s annual gay pride march is scheduled for Sunday, and organizers expect about 750 people to participate

The march will begin at noon in front of New Paltz Middle School on Main Street and end at Hasbrouck Park, where a festival will be held. That event is expected to draw some 2,000 people.

The march, being held during Gay Pride Month, is being organized by the Kingston-based Hudson Valley LGBTQ Community Center.

The gay pride march dates to 2005, with the first one being held shortly after Jason West, the village of New Paltz mayor at the time, presided over a “solemnization” ceremony at which some two dozen same-sex couples were declared wed, even though gay marriage wasn’t yet legal in New York state.

Jeff Rindler, executive director of the LGBTQ center, said the annual gay pride event is called a “march” because “while we’ve come very far, there is still more to go.”

Same-sex marriage is now legal in all 50 states, but Rindler noted that “two days after the current regime (the Trump administration) went into office, the LGBTQ page was taken off the White House [website’s] list of pages.”

“We were getting calls about ... getting married now before something should change, what may happen to [the U.S. military policy of] ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ ... [and] about the health coverage for those of trans experience who may be looking for gender reassignment surgery,” Rindler said.

Rindler said a greater acceptance of the LGBTQ community is evident locally.

“We are asked to be part of the community,” he said. “For example, I’ve been asked to join the Kingston Uptown Business Association; through the Department of Social Services, we’ve been asked to be on the core advisory group of the Domestic Violence Council. So we are at the table and don’t have to fight as we did a decade ago [to be] in those conversations; we are being asked.”

Other scheduled local events during Gay Pride Month include:

• A reception from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Thursday at the Hudson Valley LGBTQ Community Center, 300 Wall St., Kingston.

• A Pride Kickoff Dance Party at 8 p.m. Friday at BSP, 323 Wall St., Kingston.

• A “What it Means to be Proud” panel discussion at 6 p.m. June 8 at the Hudson Valley LGBTQ Community Center.

• Participation in the June 11 gay pride march in Washington, D.C., with local participants leaving Kingston at 4:45 a.m.

• An event called “Remembering Orlando” at 5:30 p.m. June 12 at the Hudson Valley LGBTQ Community Center.

• A screening of the film “The Freedom to Marry” at 1 p.m. June 18 at Upstate Films on Tinker Street in Woodstock. A post-screening discussion will feature former village of New Paltz Mayor Jason West, film producers Duffy Violante and Ted Snowdon, and director Eddie Rosenstein.

• A “Know Your Rights” training session at 6 p.m. June 28 at the Hudson Valley LGBTQ Community Center.