GAY PARADE MARCHES IN NEW YORK CITY
Barry Z with James Edstrom along with Miss Times Square Gossip and Ian Miller Clergy led New York City's gay pride parade, lending their moral authority to an event that also featured drag queens, motorcycle-riding lesbians and samba dancers. Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum, who heads a gay synagogue, and the Reverend Troy Perry, founder of the Metropolitan Community Church, were the parade's grand marshals. In Kleinbaum's words, "Those who use religion to advocate an anti-gay agenda, I believe, are blaspheming God's name." Buddhists carried a gay pride sign that said "Don't Block Your Buddha." The march is characterized as much by thumping music, dancing and corporate-sponsored floats as it is by protest signs.Men dressed in elaborate feather headdresses and not much else paraded down Fifth Avenue, along with floats commemorating victims of AIDS and other floats full of singers and dancers.Big companies like Starbucks, W Hotels and JPMorgan Chase had f...