Jersey Pride's
celebration
all about a sense of
diversity
Asbury Park parade,
live music, food and vendors
mark 20th year of
festivities
By Alex Biese, Staff
Write, Sunday, June 5, 2011
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Asbury
Park holds its Jersey Pride 20th Annual LGBTI Pride Parade and
celebration, Sunday, June 05, 2011. Jason Valdenarro, 16,
left, of Dumont, and his sister Jacqueline,16, right, carry the
banner for the parade.
Mary Frank/Staff Photographer. |
“I’m excited because it’s my first (pride celebration),” said Alexander, also
decked out in glitter and rainbow-colored body paint. “I’m excited to be
really, really obnoxious and out there.”
Cooper and Alexander later marched in the parade with the Monmouth County
Consortium for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Youth. Other groups
that took part in the parade ranged from the Jersey Shore Roller Girls roller
derby league to the Gay Activist Alliance in Morris County, as well as two
marching bands performing Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance.”
Following the parade, the celebration continued at Bradley Park on Ocean Avenue
with a festival that included live music, food, vendors and many of the groups
that had taken part in the parade.
“It’s just wonderful to not only see gays and lesbians here, but also supportive
straight people,” said Allen Neuner of Somerville, editor of the Gay Activist
Alliance in Morris County’s Challenge newsletter.
Neuner said he hopes attendees come away on Sunday with “a sense of the
diversity that’s within what’s normally called the LGBT community. That’s
a bit of a misnomer — it’s not just a community, it’s a whole set of
communities.”
Jersey Pride president and event founder Laura Pople said the impetus in 1992
for starting the event, now in its 20th year, was the passage of an amended
state law against discrimination that included sexual orientation.
“Jersey at that point was only the fifth state in the country that had that
(law). We still don’t on a national level,” said Pople, a Perth Amboy
resident, earlier this week.
(Abridged.)
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