Court wins swell crowds at gay-pride parades
Justice denies late challenge
SAN FRANCISCO — Gayrights supporters crowded parade routes in San Francisco, New York and other major U.S. cities on Sunday — but this year’s pride celebrations were especially lively after a week that saw the Supreme Court issue two major decisions on gay marriage.
Among the thousands at San Francisco’s event, now in its 43rd year, were scores of teenage girls, opposite-sex couples and families with children.
“You can feel the smiles,” Graham Linn, 42, of Oakland said as he surveyed the crowds standing 10-deep on the sidewalks.
The biggest applause went up for the two newlywed couples whose legal challenge of Proposition 8 made it possible for Californians to wed.
The couples — Kris Perry and Sandy Stier of Berkeley, and Paul Kat- ami and Jeff Zarrillo of Burbank — waved from convertibles as a group of people carrying cartoon-style signs that read, “Prop. 8-Kapow!”
Loud cheers went to House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom and state Atty. Gen. Kalama Harris — straight politicians who have been vocal advocates of same-sex marriage.
San Francisco’s parade lineup illustrated how mainstream support for same-sex marriage has become. Companies such as Facebook and supermarket chain Safeway were represented. Police officers and sheriff’s deputies marched while holding hands.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday struck down Proposition 8, the 2008 voter initiative that outlawed same-sex marriage in California, and also invalidated part of a 1996 federal law that denied spousal benefits to gay couples. On Sunday morn- ing, Justice Anthony Kennedy denied a last-ditch request from the sponsors of Proposition 8 to halt the issuance of same-sex marriage licenses in the nation’s most populous state.
San Francisco City Hall remained open on Sunday so couples could obtain licenses. Every other clerk in California’s 58 counties will be required to issue same-sex marriage licenses starting Monday.
The parade in New York City also was a sort of victory lap for Edith Windsor, the 84-year- old widow who challenged the federal Defense of Marriage Act after she was forced to pay $363,053 on the estate of her late wife.
Windsor, grand marshal of the parade, recalled watching the parade on television in past years with her wife, Thea Spyer, before Spyer died in 2009.
“If someone had told me 50 years ago that I would be the marshal of New York City gay pride parade in 2013 at the age of 84, I never would have believed it,” she said.