Singer Cyndi Lauper has confirmed as a celebrity grand marshal for the San Francisco LGBT Pride Parade.

Lindsey Jones, executive director of the San Francisco LGBT Pride Celebration Committee, confirmed her appearance. Lauper will headline her "True Colors" concert in Berkeley after the parade Sunday, June 29.

Singer, songwriter, actor, musician, and the all-around diva Charo will be joining the 2008 San Francisco LGBT Pride Celebration and Parade on June 28th and 29th as a Celebrity Grand Marshal.

A mainstay on numerous TV shows in the 60’s and 70’s and the world record-holder for the most “Love Boat” appearances (21 to be exact), Charo will be riding in the 2008 Parade on Sunday morning, June 29th in a float filled with Charo look-alikes.

The Return of Charo and Her Las Vegas Show!
Sunday, June 29th @ 8pm
Herbst Theatre
401 Van Ness Ave
San Francisco

Miguel Bustos was raised in San Francisco’s Mission District. Currently, he is Director of Intergovernmental Affairs for Mayor Ron Dellums. Previously, he worked for Vice President Gore; Congresswoman Barbara Lee; and Mayor Newsom.

In 2008, a majority of those community members polled elected to hurl the Pink Brick at Bill O'Reilly, beating out the Human Rights Campaign who came in second and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Bill O'Reilly get "Pink Brick" Award
Unlike past recipients, Bill O'Reilly's receipt of this award cannot be attributed to any one stance or event. His consistent efforts to mislead his viewers and listeners about issues regarding the LGBT community and LGBT people does more than just leave a misleading impression—it reinforces ignorance about and hatred of our community. While there are many instances to which we might refer, his lesbian gang segment on The O'Reilly Factor on June 21, 2007 epitomizes the way in which O'Reilly has discarded truth in favor of baseless slander and fear-mongering.

That segment, which described a supposed surge in LGBT gangs and related violence across the U.S., has been widely criticized—and rightly so—for its many inaccuracies and unsubstantiated claims. That segment described an incident in which a group of lesbian women attacked a man by the name of Wayne Buckle in New York City.

*** Not mentioned in this segment on "lesbian gangs" was the fact that there is no evidence that the women involved in the attack on Wayne Buckle were members of any criminal gang. Also unmentioned was the fact that the women were responding to Buckle's unwelcomed sexual advances which resulted in his flicking a cigarette at the women after one of them rebuffed his sexual overtures.
That segment also featured in the background a highly provocative, looped video of women fighting.

The insinuation was that these women represented the group Dykes Taking Over, which O'Reilly's segment indicated was an example of a lesbian gang. Had the audio accompanied that video, which is widely available on internet video sites, it would have quickly revealed that these young women were fighting over a boy—so much for violent lesbians.

Sensationalism trumped truth. The footage was provocative and meant to instill fear and in so doing, to drive up ratings by means of unabashed sensationalism. It is extremely difficult to conclude from the available evidence that the purpose of the segment was to describe any real trends in gangs across the country when the evidence of which O'Reilly made use was faulty and misleading. (You can review the video with audio here) http://www.break.com/index/huge-chick-fight-at-beach.html

O'Reilly's reporting about LGBT people amounts to false provocation. His reach is wide and his audience large, so measuring the impact of his words on hundreds of thousands of listeners and viewers who interact with LGBT people infrequently is difficult to measure, but there are predictable consequences to such fear-mongering. Hatred against and misunderstandings about LGBT people all too often spill over into violence. We Californians are bitterly aware of this fact in the wake of the shooting of 15 year-old Lawrence King at his school in Oxnard on February 12 of this year.

I have not been to Pride in years. I got tired of parades after watching and marching in them for several years. I like Cyndi Lauper. It's cool that she is participating. Regarding O'Reilly, he needs an actual pink brick thrown at him.

do we still need gay pride parades? I've been to my share of them, including two in San Francisco that really started to drag after about an hour and a half. The ones in Vancouver BC have been the most fun. But still, once you've seen one you've pretty much seen them all. I think the attendent partying and special events and general bonding of the tribes is much more fun and has more value. I guess maybe you can't have one without the other.

Oh my, O'Reilly really has a wild-man temper. He's on the warpath right now, trying to bring down General Electric and Keith Olbermann! O'Reilly is the incredible green HULK!! But meanwhile, people, keep playing that hilarious you-tube of the HULKY O'Reilly over and over - kind of propelling the truth, in place of the propaganda.

The organizers of the annual St. Patrick's Day parade in New York City, which honors Irish heritage, still refuse to allow groups representing the LGBT community to participate in their parades.

Do we still need pride parades? Do we still need civil rights and labor rights protest marches?
Do we still need unions?

Yes, yes, yes.

As long as there is anti-LGBT discrimination, we will need parades.
As long as school boards refuse to include positive messages about gay people in school (or encourage/ignore homophobic messages taught in school), we will need parades.

Communities need to see which elected officials and candidates for office choose to march in the parades, which ones will accept prominent positions (eg grand marshalls) in the parades.

Communities also need to see that not all gay people conform to the stereotypes that the media and popular culture are so enamored with. There are average-joe police officers, teachers, college students, ministers, athletes, etc etc who are lesbian and gay, or who support people who are, and whose gayness would be largely invisible if they did not march in parades.

Besides which, having a parade is something Americans (anyway) seem to be genetically programmed to do. We love parades -- look for any excuse to hold them. Why else would we still have parades for Thanksgiving Day, Independence Day, and the Rose Bowl?

You make some really good points, visionari. I have to agree with you.

One thing that has always bugged me is straights who say (and gays who agree with them) that the parades need to be tamer and less flamboyant and more fully clothed. If we are going to have them they need to represent us in all of our diversity and exuberance. Straights had better tone down Mardi Gras and Carnival, not to mention Spring Break, before they start getting on our case about this kind of thing.

I've opted out of the L.A. Pride Parade the last couple of years but this year I might be compelled to attend - the Grand Marshall is our own Stephanie Miller!!!!!

We don't really have a parade here. But, we do have a pride day. I've neglected to attend one yet, bu might this year if my schedule allows.

The Long Beach Pride Festival turned 25 this year, and the general feeling, despite the California ruling on forbidding gay marriage, is one of entropy. But, take heart- a new generation of Fellow Travelers will come along to energize things. As long as we don't get another pig in the WH and they don't ship us all off to a Blackwater "Resort".