LGBT 2006 highlights

Chicago WW photo: Lou Paulsen

An estimated half-million people turned out for Chicago’s Lesbian Gay Bi Trans Pride parade on June 25, and the multinational throng of spec tators cheered wildly for the radical contingent organized by the Gay Liberation Network. Banners and signs denounced anti-gay bigots, President Geo rge W. Bush, and the Iraq war. Chants proclaimed, “Equal marriage is a right” and, “Stone wall vive, vive-la lucha sigue, sigue!” (Stonewall lives-the struggle continues!) The GLN distributed thousands of leaflets about a June 27 demonstration in Marion, Ind., against Exodus Inter national, a religious-right project that claims to “cure” gay people. Supporting groups included Code Pink, Black LGBT & Allies for Equality, World Can’t Wait, the IWW, Pomegranate Radical Health Collective, ANSWER, and Workers World Party.

Around 200,000 marched and paraded in Seattle on June 24 and 25 at the Dyke March and the Raise your Voice March. This year’s march celebrated the new statewide gay non-discrimination law, which was passed after 30 years of marching and going to the legislature.

New York WW photo: John Catalinotto

There were tens of thousands of people lining Peachtree Street in Atlanta for this year’s Pride parade when a massive rainstorm forced cancellation of the program. Nevertheless, a multinational contingent from the Progressive Queer Agenda, Men Stopping Violence, International Action Center and others marched from the parade to the State Capitol, carrying banners that read: “No Homophobia! No War and Occupation! Unite to Fight the Right!”

In New York, the International Action Center’s banner—demanding full rights for all and the immediate return of troops from Iraq, as well as expressing solidarity with immigrants and Katrina evacuees—was received with loud applause and cheers.

Lou Paulsen, Jim McMahan, and Dianne Mathiowetz contributed to
this article.