August 1986

Gay Peoples Chronicle

THE GAY PRIDE PARADE

BY THE CHRONICLE STAFF

The Ohio Gay Pride Parade took place on schedule in Columbus June 29. Stonewall Union gave mechanical counters to its monitors, who counted 8,597 marchers, making this the largest parade to date.

The Cleveland contin-

gent was decidedly smaller than last year, in number of bodies-less than 100--and number of organizations.

Resplendant in purple and white, Body Works members (right) provided badly needed color and spirit while we waited to march.

page 9

CHRONIC

The Chronicle contingent was delighted to be reunited with Rick Berg (left). Several unaffiliated persons behind us (some of them unfortunately concealed by our banner) helped make the occasion gay in both senses. But many Cleveland marchers (right) seemed subdued. Both sides of the Street bridge over the Scioto were lined with praying crazies, lifting arms eyes to the sky to seeing the

Broad

and

avoid

marchers. We

wished we had been prepared.

While

they

were ludicrous

as fear. We

rather than alarming, they may have interpreted

silence

our

should

have been singing or chanting. One Clevelander began singing "We Shall Overcome" stopped when several comlained

but

Because the fundamentalist

crazies had

State House

year,

reserved the

grounds this

the Parade's destination was the amphitheatre on the Scioto.

The rally there (below) --complete with a floating statue

of

libergy--was

chaired by Rhonda Rivera and Dennis Cox. San Francisco

lesbian/feminist

activist

Mary C. Dunlap was featured speaker. Buck Harris, gay health consultant for the

Ohio Department

of Health, urged us to wear the safety pin symbolizing safe sex. Jeff Swindler, the speaker for Cleveland, emphasized importace of volunteer work in the community.

marchers

they

didn't know the words.

Be-

low, Brian DeWitt of

Gay

Waves records the indescrib-

the

able sound of the crazies.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY MARTHA PONTONI