Revellers massed in central London Saturday for the annual Pride festival amid warnings that gay rights are under threat worldwide after decades of progress.
Organisers, anticipating more than 1.5 million attendees in total over a day of marching and partying, defied threats of disruption from the climate action group Just Stop Oil.
The group, which has been staging high-profile protests including at an England-Australia cricket match this week, was angered by Pride’s partnership with headline sponsor United Airlines.
Just Stop Oil had also demanded that Pride ban parade floats sponsored by “high-polluting industries”, and nine of its activists briefly halted a float sponsored by Coca-Cola.
Seven of them blocked the road and were hauled away by police, while two others sprayed paint over the road.
“These partnerships embarrass the LGBTQ+ community at a time when much of the cultural world is rejecting ties to these toxic industries,” Just Stop Oil said in a statement.
But the mood overall was festive at the Pride parade through central London and across five music stages including in Trafalgar and Leicester squares.
London mayor Sadiq Khan, who headed the parade, said the 51st annual gathering showed “the world that our capital is a beacon of inclusivity and diversity”.
The first Pride march took place in London on July 1, 1972, inspired by New York’s 1969 Stonewall riots against police harassment of the gay community.
The British event has grown to be one of the world’s biggest, celebrating gay identity and the progress made in entrenching the community’s rights.
But Khan noted recent threats to that progress, including in Britain where right-wingers have been waging “culture wars” against so-called woke politics.
In May, Uganda adopted a law making “aggravated homosexuality” a capital offence and threatening up to life in prison for consensual same-sex relations.
Florida’s Republican governor and presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis has pushed through a ban on school lessons related to gender identity and sexual orientation –- 20 years after a similar law was scrapped in England and Wales.
“The sad reality is that people continue to be persecuted around the world because of who they are and we’re seeing a concerted effort worldwide from some to reverse gains that have been hard-won,” Khan wrote in the Gay Times newspaper.
“That is why it is so important that we stand together to celebrate our differences and that this year’s Pride campaign is in support of the capital’s trans and non-binary communities,” he added.
British Foreign Office minister Andrew Mitchell tweeted that Pride celebrated “how far the world has come on LGBT+ rights, but there is still a way to go”.
Last month, Estonia legalised same-sex marriage while Japan has introduced its first LGBT+ legislation, he noted, adding that Britain “will continue to fight for equality”.
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