SAN FRANCISCO — Cities across the nation were gearing up Sunday for what were expected to be especially well-attended and exuberant gay pride parades following the U.S. Supreme Court decisions restoring same-sex marriages to California and granting gay couples the federal benefits of marriage they were previously denied.
The gay pride celebrations scheduled in San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Seattle and St. Louis are annual, and in most cases decades-old events whose tones and themes have mirrored the gay rights movement's greatest victories and defeats. This year's parades, coming on the heels of the high court's historic decisions, should be no exception.
In San Francisco, the four plaintiffs in the case that led to the end of California's gay marriage ban will be riding in a contingent organized by the city attorney. Newlyweds Kris Perry and Sandy Stier of Berkeley, and Paul Katami and Jeff Zarrillo of Burbank, were able to marry Friday after a federal appeals court lifted a hold it had put on same-sex marriages while the couples' lawsuit challenging the ban worked its way toward and then through the Supreme Court. City officials decided to keep the clerk's office open throughout the weekend so couples who were in town for the celebration could get married.