Pride parades march on with new urgency amid calls for changes in law
- As anti-gay sentiments resurface, some are pushing for pride parades to return to their roots as overtly civil rights marches rather than street parties
- The marches come 2 days after a conservative justice said the Supreme Court should reconsider the right to same-sex marriage and laws criminalising gay sex
Parades celebrating LGBTQ pride kick off in some of America’s biggest cities on Sunday amid new fears about the potential erosion of freedoms won through decades of activism.
The annual marches in New York, San Francisco, Chicago and elsewhere take place just two days after one conservative justice on the Supreme Court signalled, in a ruling on abortion, that the court should reconsider the right to same-sex marriage recognised in 2015.
That warning shot came after a year of legislative defeats for the LGBTQ community, including the passage of laws in some states limiting the discussion of sexual orientation or gender identity with children.
As anti-gay sentiments resurface, some are pushing for pride parades to return to their roots – less as blocks-long street parties but overtly civil rights marches.
“It has gone from being a statement of advocacy and protest to being much more of a celebration of gay life,” Sean Clarkin, 67, said of New York City’s annual parade while enjoying a drink recently at Julius’s, one of the oldest gay bars in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village.
As he remembers things, the parade was once about defiance and pushing against an oppressive mainstream that saw gays, lesbians and transgender people as unworthy outsiders.