An estimated 250,000 revelers lined the
downtown streets of Berlin Saturday to celebrate the German capital's
annual gay pride parade, the AP reported.
The colorful parade comes a week after
the city's annual Lesbian and Gay City Festival (Lesbisch-Schwules
Stadfest), a rocking party that lasts all weekend and draws
thousands.
Now in its 32nd year,
Saturday's gay pride parade is called Christopher Street Day in
commemoration of the start of the modern gay rights movement at the
Stonewall Inn in New York's Greenwich Village in 1969. The gay bar
is located on Christopher Street, the gay neighborhood's most famous
street.
About 50 colorful floats wound their
way around Berlin's downtown streets to end up for the first time at
the Brandenburg Gate.
In cutting the ribbon to start the
parade, openly gay Mayor Klaus Wowerit reminded the crowd that
prejudice against LGBT people persists, even in liberal Germany.
“There is still daily discrimination
against, and attacks upon, homosexuals,” Wowerit said. “We have
to fight for equal rights for as long as that remains the case.”
Next month, Germany
will play host to Gay Games 2010, which is expected to draw up to
12,000 athletes and artists from around the world to participate in a
unique sports and cultural festival that takes place once every four
years.