ARCATA -- Humboldt County residents and officials banded together under a rainbow-colored flag on Sunday in a diverse display of community pride.
They came in all shapes, sizes, ages, sexual orientations, colors and backgrounds. But the message was clear: The need to celebrate and respect equality, courage, love and freedom of choice.
At noon on Sunday, about 200 people gathered at Arcata's Stewart Park for the march through town to the Arcata Plaza. Candy for the eye included vivid costumes, rainbow-hued flags, feather boas and stilt walkers. Also in attendance were seniors in wheelchairs, families with strollers and every age and persuasion in between.
Phrases of the day included "Hetero Supporter," "Straight But Not Narrow," "Mental Health Workers Supporting Human Rights," and "Sorry, I don't do girls" on a T-shirt worn by a male.
As the parade headed down 16th Street and then to H Street for the march to the plaza, residents gathered on porches and sidewalks to watch. While techno dance music blared from one end of the crowd, the Marching Lumberjacks rocked out to old favorites like "On Broadway," as people cart wheeled, danced and sang their way downtown. When it hit the corner of Ninth and H streets, the parade was greeted by a throng or admirers at the Arcata Plaza.
The festival's Grand Marshall Ornelas, State Assembly Woman Patty Berg, D-Eureka, Arcata Vice Mayor Connie Stewart and Eureka Mayor Peter La Vallee arrived at the plaza at the head of the parade by car. The officials waved and flashed peace signs to the crowd and tossed candy to the crowd.
La Vallee said he was "looking forward to a time when a parade like this is in Eureka going right down Fifth Street.
"I'm looking forward to a time when we can just celebrate, instead of having to fight for our rights," La Vallee said. "Until then we'll take diversity to the streets."
Many speakers at the festival, including representatives of State Senator Wesley Chesbro, D-Arcata, and Congressman Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, acknowledged 2004 as a champion year for what they called a basic human right -- a freedom of choice in marriage.
Berg said San Francisco celebrated 4,037 same-sex marriages in February and March.
"And it's still happening there in Massachusetts," Berg said. "Little by little we will chip away at the prejudices and injustices and eventually we'll get there. It's always puzzled me why marriage needs to be protected from loving couples. They simply want the legal rights, recognition and respect that heterosexual couples enjoy."
Berg said she recently signed on to a statement opposing a Constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.
"Amendments usually expand and enhance rights," Berg said. "And for that reason I simply cannot support this amendment as being proposed by President Bush."
The assemblywoman also said she is supporting two initiatives, AB1967 and AB205, which would expand gay and lesbian rights.
Humboldt County Supervisor John Woolley read the county's proclamation declaring June 13, 2004, as pride day.
"The foundation of our society is love," Woolley said. "May this event today continue that tradition and be a simple testament to our whole society."
Stewart, Ornelas and Arcata City Councilman Dave Meserve took turns reading the city's proclamation in recognition of Lesbian, Bisexual and Gay Awareness Day on June 13, 2004.
The Gay and Lesbian Alliance of Humboldt County and Humboldt Pride presented Ornelas with an award for his continued support of the festival for the past 12 years.
"Until we can all walk hand-in-hand together in safety in any town in America, then we will continue to meet at the Gay Pride Parade," Ornelas said.
This year's keynote speaker was Dennis Peron, a gay man, Vietnam veteran and former candidate for governor of California. He founded San Francisco's Cannabis Buyers' Club in 1991 to provide marijuana to those suffering with AIDS, cancer, glaucoma and multiple sclerosis. He worked successfully for the passage of Proposition 215, the Compassionate Use Act of 1996.
Later in the day when four couples, including three lesbian couples and one heterosexual couple, participated in the communal a commitment ceremony.
The ceremony was led by ministers Fhyre Phoenix and Tracy Jordan French, reading from rainbow-colored scrolls. An Apache wedding prayer was read, and the community was asked to open its hands with "friendship and support." The couples pledged to honor each other and exchanged rings in a public testimony to their committed relationships.
"Let us not forget that marriage is an independent matter," French said.