Yesterday marked the first Gay Pride Parade and Festival in Philadelphia since gay marriage became legal in Pennsylvania just last month. The parade, which started in the Gayborhood and wound its way down to Penn’s Landing, drew the largest crowds yet. There were rainbows everywhere. The Village People headlined the show at Penn’s Landing, several couples married at Independence Hall, and there were community-based LGBTQ booths (hi HRC friends!) as far as the eye could see down by the river.
Here are just a few pictures I snapped while celebrating yesterday.
As much fun as it was to see the revelry, I look forward to the day when highlighting the LGBTQ community isn’t necessary because it’s completely commonplace. Love is love.
“The only thing they have to look forward to is hope. And you have to give them hope. Hope for a better world, hope for a better tomorrow, hope for a better place to come to if the pressures at home are too great. Hope that all will be all right. Without hope, not only gays, but the blacks, the seniors, the handicapped, the us’es, the us’es will give up. And if you help elect to the central committee and other offices, more gay people, that gives a green light to all who feel disenfranchised, a green light to move forward. It means hope to a nation that has given up, because if a gay person makes it, the doors are open to everyone. So if there is a message I have to give, it is that if I’ve found one overriding thing about my personal election, it’s the fact that if a gay person can be elected, it’s a green light. And you and you and you, you have to give people hope….”
~ Harvey Milk
