Deputy Mayor Toni Atkins presented San Diego LGBT Pride with a commendation at last Friday’s Spirit of Stonewall rally on behalf of the mayor’s office, as well as another commendation from the office of Councilmember Scott Peters. The commendations were issued in lieu of an official proclamation from the San Diego City Council honoring Pride, which was pulled off the docket at a July 25 council meeting amid last week’s controversy (see news story, above). Atkins was unanimously elected to serve San Diego as deputy mayor at the July 25 council meeting, and is the city’s first openly gay acting mayor.

“We are a community of integrity, who never backs down,” Atkins told the crowd.

“This is about us, not about me, so my goal in the next four months is to serve San Diego and the community with as much integrity [and] distinction as I can do that, and I will. So the seventh largest city in the country now has a lesbian mayor,” Atkins said as the crowd cheered.

Atkins said Councilmember Donna Frye was recovering from that week’s mayoral special election and would not be marching in the parade in order to spend time with her family. Atkins said Frye was there “in spirit.”

Chula Vista Mayor Steve Padilla publicly came out at the rally, and issued an official proclamation from the second largest city in San Diego County honoring San Diego Pride.

“Toni’s staff was asking what I should say when I get up here. It’s a tough act to follow. I thought somebody should stand up and say, ‘Yeah the rumors are all true,’” Padilla said.

Assemblymember Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, spoke at the rally about the recent struggle he has had in the Legislature over the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act, which aims to legalize same-sex marriage in California. After the bill failed in the Assembly, Leno reintroduced the bill into the state Senate, where it has yet to come up for a floor vote.

“I wasn’t so certain we needed to fight a war over a word, but my mind and heart were changed irrevocably after having read the decision in 2003 of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court,” Leno told the crowd. “They said no parallel construct such as civil unions or domestic partnership will do, because, they said in their words, anything short of marriage would perpetuate a destructive stereotype – that there’s something inherently inferior in the way gay and lesbian couples love … I’d never thought about it like that before. It was at that moment I thought, ‘I’m prepared to fight a war over a word.’”

Congressmember Susan Davis’ district director Todd Gloria, Imperial Court de San Diego board chair Linda Childers and longtime community volunteer Cathy Hemphill received community service awards at the rally. Community fund-raiser Bill Beck and former Center board member Jennifer LeSar were honored as Champions of Pride.

“I’m very proud of the board of Pride for making some of the difficult decisions that they made this week,” LeSar said when she accepted her award, referring to the controversy over the dismissal of four convicted sex offenders on Pride’s team. “I believe through struggle at the organizational level, struggle as a community, we all grow so much stronger, and I think this week has been a week of growing for all of us; and from it we are a much stronger community from the dialogue we had around these issues.”

Malcolm X Library director Marc Chery was presented with the Friend of the Year Award for his support of the GLBT community. This year’s Pride grand marshals were Ordinary Miracles co-founder Mike Phillips, California State Conference of the NAACP president Alice Huffman and former Poway High School students Joey Ramelli and Megan Donovan, who settled an anti-gay discrimination lawsuit with the school district earlier this year.

Sgt. Mark Dallezotte of the San Diego Police Department put Saturday’s Pride parade count at 144,000 spectators and participants.

About 20 protestors from the Family Values Coalition showed up for the parade and picketed from the corner of Ninth and University avenues, though no unruly incidences were reported.

Festival attendance was estimated at 50,000, but Pride won’t have exact numbers until tickets are counted over the next two weeks.

Pride’s media coordinator, Frank Sabatini, Jr., said that “by all accounts, Saturday’s lines were particularly longer and fatter compared to past festivals. Last year’s attendance was nearly 45,000.”

Approximately 45 couples took part in the mass commitment ceremony held on festival grounds Sunday afternoon, and many couples lined up at the site to register for California domestic partnerships.

Only one arrest for disorderly conduct was made all weekend at the festival, and involved an individual who became intoxicated, Sabatini said.