UK rugby star Ben Cohen and openly gay
Forth Worth Councilman Joel Burns will help celebrate Dallas Gay
Pride.
Thousands of revelers are expected to
travel the roughly 1 mile parade route down Cedar Springs Road to Lee
Park in downtown Dallas on September 18.
The 28th annual Dallas Gay
Pride Parade, called the Alan
Ross Texas Freedom Parade, will be led by three grand marshals,
the Dallas Voice reported: Alan Pierce and Gary Miller,
partners in life and owners of the Round-Up Saloon, and community
volunteer Chris Bengston.
The parade will also honor Joel Burns
with the title of honorary grand marshal.
Burns is the openly gay Forth Worth
councilman whose video
of a speech he gave last year at a city council meeting about gay
teens bullied to death went viral on the Internet.
Also expected at the parade is gay ally
Ben Cohen. Cohen retired from playing rugby in the UK earlier this
year to head his anti-homophobia campaign, the Ben Cohen Stand Up
Foundation.
“The time is right now to retire from
rugby and follow my new passion,” Cohen said during a recent
videotaped interview. “People have the right to be happy and, you
know, to be loved and love others.” (The video is embedded in the
right panel of this page.)