1 million at London Pride

One million people turned out for Pride in London on July 3.

While marching, London Mayor Boris Johnson told gay leader Peter Tatchell
that he supports legalizing same-sex marriage.

“Why not?” Tatchell quoted Johnson as saying. “The ban should go. … If
the Conservatives and Liberals can get together in a national coalition
and settle their differences, I don’t see why you can’t have gay
marriage.”

At present, Britain has a civil-partnership law under which same-sex
couples get the same rights and obligations as married people.

The London parade celebrated the 40th anniversary of the Gay Liberation
Front, which veteran lesbian activist Lisa Power called “the mad granny in
the attic to every major LGBT activist development since the 1970s in the
UK.”

“(T)he most important thing about GLF was that equality wasn’t enough,”
Power said. “Their aim was not to imitate anyone else’s lifestyle, but to
discover their own. In a 21st century of civil partnerships, gays in the
government and Equality as an industry, GLF still has relevant questions
to ask. ‘Equal? Equal to what?'”

There also were gay parades in June and early July in Barcelona,
Edinburgh, Helsinki, Lisbon, Madrid, Rome, Sofia, Toulouse, Vienna and
elsewhere.

By Rex Wockner