Roughly 300 people helped celebrate
Vietnam's third annual Gay Pride parade.
Sunday's parade through the streets of
Hanoi attracted mainly a young crowd, who cycled and danced through
the capital waving rainbow flags to raise awareness of LGBT rights.
The parade – the nation's largest
ever – was another sign of communist Vietnam's increasing tolerance
toward sexual minorities.
“I'm here for the rights of
homosexuals,” Le Kieu Oanh, a young art student, told the
AFP. “I want them to be treated fairly like everyone else.”
A prohibition on celebrations for gay
couples was recently repealed and in 2012 the government briefly
considered legislation which would allow gay couples to marry.
“[P]ublic opinion is not ready for
same-sex marriage,” an unnamed activist said.
The AFP reported that the police did
not intervene in Sunday's parade. This is noteworthy because demonstrations
of any kind are tightly controlled in Vietnam.