Thousands celebrate gay rights at San Francisco Pride Parade

（People's Daily Online）  10:23, July 02, 2013  

(People's Daily Online -Han Shasha) The 43rd annual Pride Parade in San Francisco attracted thousands on June 30 to celebrate the gay rights and marriage equality.

This year's event is more meaningful than ever because the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a historic ruling on June 26, which overturns the Proposition 8 and legalizes the same-sex marriage in California.

Proposition 8 was a California ballot proposition and a state constitutional amendment which was created by opponents of same-sex marriage in May 2008 attempting to ban same-sex marriage.

The parade followed its traditional route from Market Street to Civic Center Plaza, while thousand people gathered along the street cheering and applauding.

This weekend's celebration lasted almost five hours. Companies such as Facebook, Google, twitter and supermarket chain Safeway took part in the celebration. Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook, also presented at parade and waved to the audience.

The event is not only a celebration, but also an opportunity to show political aspirations. Along the parade route, many people were holding signs that read "Free Bradley Manning" . Manning was a former U.S. Army intelligence analyst who was arrested in May 2010 in Iraq on suspicion of having passed classified material to the website WikiLeaks. He was ultimately charged with 22 offenses, including communicating national defense information to an unauthorized source and aiding the enemy.