Subscribe to Breaking NewsPaterson Marches with Pride
David Paterson at a New York City Council pride event in June 2004, when he was New York State Senate minority leader.
Mainstream media coverage of the New York City Pride March usually focuses on the colorful drag queens, the leather daddies, the dykes on bikes, and the other ‘flamboyant’ members of our community marching or riding down Fifth Ave. in the country’s oldest and largest pride parade.
But this year, David Paterson gave the media a more interesting focus when he became the first sitting governor of New York to march in the annual pride event. “If there was ever any doubt that gay people form one of Gov. David A. Paterson’s most loyal and enthusiastic constituencies, that doubt was erased on Sunday by the howl of a drag queen on Fifth Avenue,” wrote Jeremy W. Peters in this morning’s New York Times.
“Governor Paterson stole the show at the Gay Pride Parade on Sunday as marchers celebrated his decision to recognize gay marriages performed in other states,” declared Khadijah Rentas and Stephanie Gaskell in today’s New York Daily News, noting that “Gilbert Baker, who designed the famed rainbow flag signifying gay pride, and transsexual actress Candis Cayne were grand marshals of the parade.”
“‘Gay’ Love for Gov” was the way the New York Post put it in describing the crowd’s enthusiasm for Paterson — the first African American governor of New York and the first legally blind person elected governor of any state. Paterson recently signed an executive order that will enable New Yorkers to obtain recognition for marriage licenses issued in California, despite the New York State Court of Appeals decision upholding Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s disgraceful appeal of a ruling granting same-sex marriage rights in New York City.
Bloomberg has been a false friend to the LGBT community in New York; Paterson has been a true friend. As historic an event it is for a governor to march in a pride parade, the true test has been his willingness to use the authority of his office to advance the rights of LGBT people in this state.
