Last year’s New York Pride had more than 100 floats and 550 contingents, including corporate sponsors and small businesses. “I live in Chelsea in Manhattan, and last year I saw a float go by with a rainbow-painted outdoor patio chair, and it was for a patio furniture company, and I thought, ‘This has just gone too far!’” “I think it’s great! I think it’s terrible!” said Marcus, laughing.
Parades now feature all manner of corporate floats. “Because gay people were sick, sinful, disgusting, horrible, illegal people, nobody wanted to be associated with gay people, and no corporation, no company selling things other than perhaps a bathhouse would advertise to gay people. Pride marches and celebrations across the United States were set up to commemorate Stonewall. Eric Marcus, a historian who hosts the “ Making Gay History” podcast, remembers one of his first pride celebrations in 1980, emphasizing that these were protest marches without much mainstream support. They did, and after that uprising, something changed in the gay rights movement.
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“The police were carting off the patrons to a nearby paddy wagon, three drag queens if I remember correctly the police particularly liked to pick on drag queens. One of them broke free and she said, ‘Come on, you faggots, let’s riot!’” The police were raiding the Stonewall Inn, as they often did, harassing the clientele for being gay or gender-nonconforming. “We saw up ahead a bunch of flickering blue police lights,” he recalled. June 28, 1969, 20-year-old Dale Mitchell and his boyfriend were walking down the street through the West Village in New York. One of the many online memes that make fun of corporate enthusiasm for Pride. LGBTQ groups have worked hard for decades to gain that acceptance, but now some are asking if there’s such a thing as too much.
There is also a lot of very visible support from corporations and other businesses. This month, there are pride celebrations in cities across the United States commemorating that uprising. It is Pride Month and the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising, which was a key turning point for the gay rights movement.