The uprising is largely credited with fueling the modern LGBTQ rights movement. Those marches came a year after the 1969 uprising outside Manhattan's Stonewall Inn, a gay bar, in response to a police raid. The disruptions frustrated activists who had hoped to collectively mark the 50th anniversary of the first Gay Pride parades and marches in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco in 1970. The parade is scheduled for June after the coronavirus prevented many Pride events worldwide last year, including in New York which instead hosted virtual performances in front of masked participants and honored front-line workers in the pandemic crisis. The group called the ban an “abrupt about-face” and said the decision “to placate some of the activists in our community is shameful.” Word of the ban came out Friday when the Gay Officers Action League said in a release it was disheartened by the decision. Police will provide first response and security “only when absolutely necessary as mandated by city officials,” the group said, adding it hoped to keep police officers at least one city block away from event perimeter areas where possible. It will also increase the event's security budget to boost the presence of community-based security and first responders while reducing the police department's presence. “And it’s our job to serve them because that’s’ what our institution does.“The sense of safety that law enforcement is meant to provide can instead be threatening, and at times dangerous, to those in our community who are most often targeted with excessive force and/or without reason,” the group said. “I think we now understand that it’s another alumni community that needs to be served,” said Cipriano. He said that Fordham “has been supportive in a way that feels genuine.”Ībby Kamphausen, a rising junior at Fordham College at Rose Hill, said there’s a need to continue to make sure that everyone who falls under the acronym LGBTQ gets recognized, “and not just the ‘G.’”Īnd Jeffrey Cipriano, FCLC ’14, said that gay people have always been at Fordham, though they may not have been “out.” He said that the LGBTQ community shares a bond with other newly formed alumni groups, such as MOSAIC, the multicultural affinity chapter. Rainbow Rams member Stephen Erdman, FCRH ’13, helped to organize the University’s participation. It’s great to see the two finally come together.” “There are a lot of great alumni, and they contribute to both the parade and to Fordham. “It’s been a long time coming to be able to show pride for a very sizable, and very strong, part of our community,” he said.
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While this might have been the University’s first official representation, Vincent Marans, FCRH ’82, GSAS ’84, acknowledged that it wasn’t the first time Fordham alumni had marched in the parade or volunteered for gay causes. On Christopher Street, dozens reached out to shake his hand, give him a hug, and salute him.Īileen Reynolds, FCRH ’14, former president of the Fordham student body, said that being part of the parade officially under a banner that read “Fordham, the Jesuit University of New York” was historic.īarbara Senecal-Davis, Ph.D., GRE ’16, executive minister at First Presbyterian Church, hands out water in front of her church. “I’m happy to be one of the first, and I’m sure there’s a long stream of us to come.”ĭamon garnered as many cheers in his Navy whites as Johnson did with her cane. “I march for all of those in the military who came before and weren’t able to show both their military pride and gay pride,” said Patrick Damon, FCLC ’13, a 3rd class petty officer in the U.S. Organized by the Rainbow Rams alumni chapter and the Office of Alumni Relations, the event was a long time coming for several students and alumni, said participants. Anthony Gatti, FCRH ’14, reacts to seeing his alma mater in the march.įor the very first time, Fordham University was represented in New York’s annual Gay Pride March by a contingent of some 30 alumni and friends.