Gay City News

Page 17

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Paul Schindler and former Senator Tom Duane.

sion that shows lack of vision,” he said, “and lack of understanding of the continued challenges our community faces. We have to make sure none of us are left behind in the fight for equality and justice.” Anne McGuire and Marie Honan, longtime activists in the fight for a queer-inclusive St. Patrick’s Parade who came to honor Maxine Wolfe, told me they actually weren’t leaping for joy at the fact that openly LGBT people would be allowed to march under their own banners for the first time in this year’s parade. “It feels like penance,” McGuire said. “It’s 25 years too late.” Many trans folks were among the awardees at the Grand Prospect, including cute Emmett Findley from God’s Love

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Deborah Brennan, chair of the Brooklyn Pride Community Center.

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the summer, because darker skin is ugly.”) Duane, who added, “Sure, queer lives matter. Black lives matter, too,” was looking good with partly silver hair. After he was seated, he told me how happy he was to get a chance to support Bernie Sanders for president. “I never thought I would see the day when he could run,” he said. “I would occasionally mention capitalism on the State Senate floor, and people would look at me like I was crazy.” In a private interview in the back of the hall, Dick Dadey, honored for his work with the Citizens Union but previously a longtime executive director with the Empire State Pride Agenda, criticized the latter group’s decision to disband in the wake of the passage of marriage equality. “It’s an unfortunate deci-

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along with Tommy Craven); “economic justice, and justice for communities of color and for the trans community that is still fighting so hard for justice and dignity” (awardee Stuart Appelbaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union); fighting violence (retired state senator and continuing activist T om Duane, who said, “We are still being murdered, par ticularly trans women of color”); fighting for the rights of “undocumented queer people” (Angie Gonzalez, again, who strikingly told the crowd that when she came out as bisexual she had to defend against the idea that all bisexuals are “greedy or promiscuous,” and also had to deal with a friend who told her “not to get any darker in

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Point Foundation Scholars Angie Gonzalez and Tommy Craven.

Bianey Garcia, who heads up the LGBTQ Justice Project of Make the Road New York.

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Robert Voorheis, Edie Windsor, honoree Cathy Marino-Thomas, honoree Joseph Vitale, and Michael Sabatino.

Honoree Carrie Davis, the chief programs and policy officer at the LGBT Community Center, speaks to Matthew McMorrow, for the past several years the government affairs director at the Pride Agenda.

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