Coronavirus forces postponement of Pride march on LI
Last year's 29th Annual Long Island Pride Parade in Long Beach on June 23. This year's event was moved to Jones Beach State Park but has been postponed due to the coronavirus. Credit: Debbie Egan-Chin
The coronavirus crisis has forced the indefinite postponement of Long Island’s LGBTQ Pride march originally scheduled for June, the organizer told Newsday on Thursday.
June 14 was to mark the celebration of the event's 30th anniversary on Long Island, but the march site, Jones Beach State Park, is a drive-thru testing site for coronavirus. The organizer, David Kilmnick, said he’ll hold a “virtual Pride” that Sunday and hopes to reschedule the march itself for later in the summer.
“There's no way in hell I think that anyone could plan for mass gatherings for the foreseeable future,” Kilmnick said.
The event moved to Jones Beach from Long Beach after a dispute with the city last year over billing.
For Long Island on June 14, 2020, Kilmnick said the “virtual Pride” would feature, among other things, videos people submit about themselves.
"Being at home does not mean we cannot be out," he said.
But he said the march must be rescheduled, even if it requires modifications.
“Pride is such an important time and event for so many people. It saves lives. It shows our young kids that are out there on Long Island or in Queens or in the other boroughs that they're not alone — that there are people just like them who are out and proud, and it gives them hope that they too will be able to live openly and freely,” Kilmnick said. “So we can't let that go, and we're not going to.”
Newsday's coverage in 1991 of the first Pride parade. Credit: Newsday
The Island’s Pride march dates to 1991 when the Town of Huntington initially denied a permit but reversed course at the prodding of a federal judge and granted the permit for the island’s first gay and lesbian pride parade. Kilmnick said he helped organize that first march.
“We shouldn't have to go into New York City just to be ourselves and celebrate Pride,” Kilmnick recalled thinking.
David Kilmnick, shown with his fist raised, was 24 when he participated in the first Long Island Pride parade, held in Huntington in June 1991. Credit: Newsday / Thomas Koeniges
Greeting the 800 marchers in the June, 9, 1991 parade were small pockets of hecklers on three corners of Main Street but a crowd of about 3,000 cheered and applauded.
The tradition of Long Island’s Pride has continued ever since, with more acceptance as the years advanced. Starting in 2000, gay officers on the Nassau and Suffolk police forces were allowed to march in uniforms.
New York City, where the event began the year after a 1969 riot against the NYPD raid of the gay bar the Stonewall Inn, now hosts the world’s preeminent Pride march. The city will decide later this week whether to allow any parades for June, mayoral spokeswoman Olivia Lapeyrolerie said Thursday.
The city's march is scheduled for June 28.
That same weekend, San Francisco was to have held its march but canceled it as California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced that large gatherings would probably be banned until the end of the summer.
— With John Asbury
Matthew Chayes, a Newsday reporter since 2007, covers New York City.
