BOSTON (AP) – Jalna Perry was happy to reach the shade, easing on her wheelchair’s brake after her partner pushed her to a grassy spot near where the Boston Pride parade emptied into Boston Common.

Wearing a purple T-shirt from the 1984 march, Perry, 73, of Cambridge, might not have been as sprightly as when she first began agitating for gay and lesbian rights in the 1960s. But her eyes danced as she talked about the dominant theme of this year’s parade: same-sex marriage.

The state’s move to become the first with court-sanctioned same-sex marriage gave this year’s parade, held June 12, an extra infusion of flair and festivity, as both marchers and observers marked the sea-change with banners and buttons, costumes and camp proclaiming their support for the court decision.

“It certainly is different. Those of us in my age group are astounded by the change,” Perry said, as a nearby oom-pah band struck up the Dixie Cups 1958 hit “Chapel of Love”. I don’t think we ever dreamed, really, that we’d get to the point of gay marriage.”

With balloons and bunting draping many of the parade floats that crept from Copley Square to the Common, speakers thumped and men and women gyrated in tuxedos and wedding gowns as they threw necklaces and trinkets to the crowds, which police estimated as between 50,000 and 100,000.

Drag queen Payton St. James, 30, of Everett, donned a long white wedding dress and heels for one of the floats, which bore a sign proclaiming “My Big Fat Gay Wedding” with a picture of two intertwined rings and a matrimonial archway made of white and rainbow crepe paper flowers.

Hoisting the train of his wedding dress with his left hand, which sparkled with a gigantic fake diamond wedding ring, St. James said he had been going to the Boston march for 10 years, but this year felt different.

“What this whole thing means to us is that we’re not invisible. We’re first class citizens, like everybody else,” he said. “I’ve never been anything but proud to be exactly what I am, but this year solidifies that.”

Few protesters were to be seen. At the end of the march route, a man standing on a footstool on a traffic island held aloft a large placard reading, “Homo sex is sin. Turn to Jesus and be born again”. Young people stood around him, taunting him and chanting, holding up a rainbow flag to obscure his sign.

The 34-year-old march, which organizers call New England’s largest, came almost a month after same-sex marriage became legal on May 17, following a ruling from the state’s highest court last year that denying marriage rights to gays and lesbians violated their civil rights.

Several cities and counties outside of Massachusetts spontaneously began issuing marriage same-sex marriage licenses after the ruling from the Supreme Judicial Court, but the legality of those unions are in question.

The ruling sparked calls for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage and the ouster of the four judges who supported the ruling. The Legislature has taken a preliminary step toward putting an amendment on the 2006 ballot that would define marriage as between a man and a woman, but allow Vermont-style civil unions.

In the meantime, gays and lesbians statewide began marrying after cities and towns began issuing marriage licenses May 17.

For Tracy Powers, 60, of Boston, the difference between this year’s event and her first parade, some 20 years ago, was obvious. When she first attended, she wept, terrified that one of her French students might recognize her along the parade route.

This time, she was making sure that she was seen as she waved, smiled and called out to friends among the tens of thousands of people lining the parade route.

“I’ve marched for years, and it’s definitely different,” she said, as she paraded among a group of older lesbian women who make up a social club called Older Lesbian Energy, or OLE. “It’s always fabulous, but there’s this little extra step this year that makes it special.”

Darrel Hopkins, 59, and his partner, Tom Casey, 52, held a banner proclaiming the date of their September wedding, when Hopkins’ son would be returning from his out-of-state duties with the U.S. Coast Guard.

Hopkins, who retired from the U.S. Army in 1982 and now holds a civilian position with the U.S. government, said as the Westminster couple milled among the crowds on the Common that he viewed the Massachusetts decision as “just a start.”

The federal government will not recognize his relationship to Casey, he said, and the pending constitutional amendment in Massachusetts could still strip away state same-sex marriage rights.

“We’ve got to grab hold of what we have and continue to fight for it,” Casey said. “In a way, it feels more like we have to do something now, more than ever before.”