Cher
SMACK! Robin and Batman make quite the dynamic duo indeed atop a float at the Gay Pride parade yesterday before Cher caps off the event at Pier 26 last night. (
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Days after the Supreme Court used her lawsuit to grant same-sex couples federal marriage benefits, Edith Windsor led the city’s Gay Pride march yesterday.
“If somebody had told me 15 years ago that I would be the marshal of New York City’s Gay Pride parade in 2013, at the age of 84, I wouldn’t have believed it,” she said as thousands of revelers celebrated her successful challenge to the Defense of Marriage Act’s definition of marriage as between a man and woman.
Windsor got the rock-star treatment from paradegoers, who held “Thank you, Edie” signs along a route lined with floats, banners and costumed celebrants, including one Batman kissing his Robin.
“I’m here today because I spent three years in the service unable to say that I’m gay,” said Monica Patron, 25, a Marine from New Jersey. “So I’m here today to say I’m gay and I’m proud. It’s awesome. It’s beautiful people. I’m laughing. My best friend’s here. I’m having a great time. I love the drag queens.”
Marchers, some arm in arm, walked the Fifth Avenue route from Midtown to Greenwich Village with their spirits elevated by the high-court rulings that struck down DOMA’s denial of benefits to same-sex couples and a ban on gay marriage in California.
“Every year we celebrate,” Mayor Bloomberg said just before the march.
“But I think this year there’s a lot more to celebrate thanks to the Supreme Court decision. I think what it really says is that this country is maturing as we have with all civil-rights issues over time.”
Windsor was overjoyed to be the grand marshal.
“I have marched in the parade for the last several years carrying a huge rainbow flag,” she said. “Last year, I was so elated that I danced my way down the whole street for the entire route of the parade.”
The NYPD increased security along the route after a recent string of anti-gay crimes.