In the crowd watching the annual L.A. Pride Parade on Sunday, Raymond Sylvester could hardly keep the smile off his face.
Sylvester, 74, was at the first parade in 1970, when it was so controversial that members of the Los Angeles Police Commission tried to prevent it, citing potential violent reaction from bystanders.
On Sunday, there were families with children — some with two fathers, some with two mothers — all around Sylvester. There were children in the parade. Smiles in the crowd. It was the first parade since the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decisions last summer that allowed gay marriage to, once again, be legal in California.