Pride Sweeps Paris, Berlin, Mexico City

The Rainbow flag was flying high Saturday as gay and lesbian pride was celebrated in two European capitals and in Mexico City.

Paris's gay mayor took a back seat to his straight counterpart from a tiny village in the south of France. Noel Mamere was clearly the star of Paris's Pride celebrations.

Huge cheers went up from the 700,000 revelers who lined the streets as Mamere went by. The mayor of Begles made headlines earlier this month when he performed France's first same-sex wedding. (story) The government is refusing to recognize the marriage and Mamere was suspended from office for 30 days for conducting the wedding.

Bertrand Delanoe, Paris's openly gay mayor, and the first gay man to be elected to lead a major world city marched alongside two former socialist government ministers, Jack Lang and Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the latter a presidential hopeful, but no one prominent from the government, appeared for the festivities.

About 80 organizations took part in the march.

In Berlin about 500,000 people snaked their way from the chic Kurfuerstendamm boulevard to the landmark Victory Column.

To the sound of thumping techno music, the city's openly gay Mayor Klaus Wowereit led floats in the annual celebration of Christopher Street Day, commemorating the start of the gay rights movement in New York City's Greenwich Village in 1969.

Wowereit told the cheering crowd while the parade was ``fun and colorful,'' but the gay community still is marginalized.

``We must fight against that,'' he said.

In Mexico City, thousands of people lined a ten block parade route the Angel of Independence monument to Mexico City's central plaza.

The parade was led off by a gay parents groups.

With dance music blasting from floats carrying mostly young men, the march stretched across four lanes of traffic and measured about 10 city blocks as it wound from

``We have to keep up the fight, the peaceful fight'' for gay' rights, said Jorge Sanchez, 45, of Mexico City, whose T-shirt declared, ``I love my gay son.''

A gay pride parade planned earlier this month in the Polish capital Warsaw was banned by Mayor Lech Kaczynski, who said he feared clashes with opponents planning their own demonstration. Poland's Gay and Lesbian Association failed in attempts to have provincial authorities overturn the ban and Berlin's marchers pledged to support them in trying to parade again next year.

Parades are scheduled today in San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Toronto and dozens of smaller centers.

http://www.365gay.com/newscon04/06/062704europride.htm

Dan lots of gay goings on across the globe this weekend and nothing bad has happened at least not that i have seen on any of the news sites :thumbsup:

Regards,

Lee