NewsWrap for the week ending July 5, 2003 (As broadcast on This Way Out program #797, distributed 7-7-03) [Written by Cindy Friedman, with thanks to Fenceberry, Rex Wockner, Graham Underhill, and Greg Gordon] Anchored by Dean Elzinga and Cindy Friedman Gays and lesbians and their allies around the world turned out by the millions for pride observances this past weekend. Pride events have spread to numerous smaller cities and towns and across the calendar as well, now occurring through most of the year. But the season peaks with the June 27th anniversary of the 1969 uprising at the Stonewall Inn on New York City's Christopher Street, where lesbigays and transgenders resisted a then-routine police raid, sparking the contemporary movement for their civil rights. In New York City this week, about a quarter-million people joined the noisy and colorful 34th annual Pride March. Among numerous politicians in the five-hour parade was Charles Schumer, who declared he was the first U.S. Senator ever to participate. Acknowledging last week's U.S. high court ruling striking down state laws against homosexual acts between consenting adults in private, Schumer said, "Let's hear it for the Supreme Court -- whoever thought I'd be saying that?" Also celebrating in New York were visiting representatives of the Jamaica Forum for Lesbians, All-Sexuals and Gays -- but for their safety, their faces had to be obscured in the photo appearing on the J-FLAG Web site. Associated pride events in New York included the 11th Annual Dyke March with nearly 7,000 participants, and a non-legal wedding ceremony for 60 gay and lesbian couples in Central Park. The Supreme Court ruling brought some added media attention to pride in Houston, Texas, where the successful gay appellants John Lawrence and Tyron Garner were featured participants. Organizers believe the city's 25th annual event was their biggest pride celebration ever, estimating the crowd may have reached 150,000. One spectacle was billed as the world's largest chandelier, a 1,000-pound mass of hundreds of lights in rainbow colors hung at a major intersection in the heavily gay Montrose district. Atlanta, Georgia's 33rd annual Pride Festival was also believed to be the biggest ever, with a crowd of perhaps 300,000. There was also a record turnout of nearly 400,000 people for Chicago's 34th annual Pride Parade, which featured some 250 entries. San Francisco's 33rd Pride Parade featured 160 entries and was viewed by 500-to-750,000. While boisterous and joyful as always, this year's edition was dedicated to the memory of San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk, the first open gay ever elected to public office in California, who fell to an assassin's bullet 25 years ago this year. The theme was one of his slogans, "You gotta give them hope." What many pride participants were demonstrating their hope for this year was enactment of a bill extending further rights and responsibilities to California's registered domestic partners, a measure which squeaked through the state As sembly and has now passed the first of two state Senate committees. Also during Pride Week, San Francisco dedicated a memorial to gay and lesbian victims of the Nazi regime. The huge 32nd Los Angeles Pride Parade was held the previous week. This year's most controversial pride observance in the U.S. was the one staged by employees of the federal Department of Justice. Not long before the scheduled date of their annual awards ceremony, the group DOJ Pride was advised they could not hold their event at department headquarters because the President had not officially proclaimed Gay and Lesbian Pride Month. Although the proclamation requirement was put forward as a new policy, it happened to be one that only affected DOJ Pride, out of all the department's employee associations. After a major media brouhaha, the department backpedaled, saying the group could use the building but that the department would not cover the costs involved. The department estimated those costs at an amount twice what DOJ Pride collects from its members in annual dues. DOJ Pride declined the offer, gathering instead at the Russell Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill under the auspices of Democratic Senator from New Jersey Frank Lautenberg. What's been in recent years North America's biggest pride audience isn't in the U.S. at all, but in Toronto. This year SARS -- Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome -- drove away a number of sponsors and threatened to cancel the event altogether, but federal and provincial funding made up the loss. Turnout was only slightly diminished from last year, as the crowd lined up six-deep to watch some 200 floats and 12,000 marchers with the continent's first legal gay and lesbian marriages to celebrate. More than 250 same-gender couples have tied the knot in Toronto since June's landmark ruling by Ontario's highest court, including about 30 from the U.S. and several from more distant nations. Although city clerks worked through the pride weekend to accommodate visiting couples who might want to marry, it seemed that only about a score of gay and lesbian marriages were held. In Paris, police estimated the pride crowd at a half-million while parade organizers believed there were more than 700,000. Openly gay Mayor Bertrand Delanoë again led the pride march, but this 13th parade was the first to be joined by an official representative of the UMP, the party of French President Jacques Chirac. That was UMP openly gay national secretary Jean-Luc Romero. Delanoë called for national legislation to criminalize homophobic actions, while fellow Socialist and former Prime Minister Laurent Fabius focussed on protecting gays' and lesbians' parenting rights. In Berlin, 400-to-600,000 people turned out to see the city's Christopher Street Day parade, whose theme was "Acceptance Instead of Tolerance." Openly gay Mayor Klaus Wowereit toted red roses and a pink teddy bear as he told the marchers, "There is no reason to hide." Politically organizers sought stronger laws against discrimination and recognition of anti-gay persecution as a basis for granting asylum. In Vienna, the crowd was about 200,000, and the main political goal was anti-discrimination legislation from the Austrian government. Zagreb's pride march was only the second in Croatia, and the 200 participants were closely guarded by three times as many police as they passed before bystanders who were often hostile. Marchers' signs included not only "I'm proud to be gay" but also "I'm tired of explaining." A march through Calcutta may have been the first pride parade in India, where a harsh sodomy law is currently being challenged in the courts. Organizers said they'd heard from many gays and lesbians who wanted to join their "Walk on the Rainbow" but were afraid to be publicly identified. Participation was variously reported from 35 to 100 marchers. Some other major pride events were held the previous week. One of the world's largest pride parades, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, had some 800,000 people dancing down the street to the blare of 30 sound trucks. Politically the event sought action on the long-stalled federal bill for legal recognition of gay and lesbian couples, which was first introduced in the national congress by Sao Paulo's gay-supportive Mayor Marta Suplicy, who rode a float at pride. Brazil reportedly has pride observances in 22 other cities. Mexico City's 25th annual march saw thousands of gays and lesbians celebrating their inclusion in a new national civil rights law. The crowd was estimated in the mid-10,000s. Earlier in June, about 300 people marched for pride in Tijuana. In South Korea, 5-to-600 gays and lesbians marched around Tapgol Park in Seoul's 4th pride observance. Several hundred people marched and several thousand rallied in Tel Aviv for Israel's largest pride event. Police presence was heavy, reflecting both con cerns for terrorism and the vocal opposition to the parade from religious conservatives. One highlight was a call for equal rights for gays and lesbians from the Israeli Justice Minister Yosef Lapid. In early June, some 20,000 gays and lesbians gathered in Bari in the south of Italy for a major demonstration for civil rights, including the release of 5,000 red heart-shaped balloons to symbolize recognition of same-gender couples. Activists did win an acknowledgement from the DS party's parliamentary president, Luciano Violante, who wrote that, "An individual's right to choose the sex life he or she prefers ... is part of our collective civil liberties and should be recognized as such." And finally... all over the world, it just wouldn't be pride without the rainbow flag. This year marked the 25th anniversary of its creation by Gilbert Baker for San Francisco's 1978 pride parade. For the rainbow banner's silver anniversary, Baker created a flag 16 feet wide and the longest yet at about a mile-and-a-third. It bears the 8 colors he'd originally planned, restoring the turquoise and fuchsia stripes that had been dropped over the years due to production problems. While it continues to make appearances at various pride events, the 3-ton flag debuted in mid-June at pride in Key West, Florida. There 2,000 people stretched it full length across the width of the island, from the Gulf of Mexico to the Atlantic Ocean -- or as participants saw it, like the words of the U.S. anthem "America the Beautiful," "from sea to shining sea."