(News Items): Pride parades for the LGBT community (also known as gay pride parades, LGBT pride parades, pride events and pride festivals) are events celebrating lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) culture. The events also at times serve as demonstrations for legal rights such as same-sex marriage. Most pride events occur annually and many take place around June to commemorate the Stonewall riots, a pivotal moment in the modern LGBT rights movement.
Early on the morning of Saturday, 28 June 1969, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning persons rioted following a police raid on the Stonewall Inn in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. The Stonewall Inn was a gay bar which catered to an assortment of patrons, but which was popular with the most marginalized people in the gay community: transvestites, transgender people, effeminate young men, hustlers, and homeless youth. The Stonewall riots are generally considered to be the beginning of the modern gay rights movement, as it was the first time in modern history that a significant body of LGBT people resisted arrest.
A Grammy and Emmy award winning artist with more than 25 sterling years and global record sales in excess of 30 million, Cyndi Lauper has proven that she has the heart and soul to keep her legion of fans compelled by her every creative move. In June 2010, she released her 11th studio album, the Grammy nominated Memphis Blues, which sat atop the Billboard Blues Chart for 14 consecutive weeks and is her 5th top 40 album of her career. 2012 is proving to be another amazing period for this career artist as Lauper continues to promote her new DVD From Memphis with Love, is expected to release her autobiography through Simon & Schuster,
will launch her own reality show in partnership with Mark Burnett Productions, is completing work writing the music for the Broadway show Kinky Boots, and continues her philanthropic work through her foundation, the True Colors Fund.

An unwavering advocate and straight ally for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) equality since the start of her career, Cyndi created the True Colors Tour in 2007. The Tour has brought together artists like Erasure, Sarah McLachlan, The B-52s, the Indigo Girls, Deborah Harry and Joan Jett & the Blackhearts for shows that successfully merge great music and public awareness about the issues facing the LGBT community. After traveling across North America for two summers, the Tour helped raise over $200,000 for LGBT organizations working to advance equality. Born from the success of the Tour, the True Colors Fund was founded in 2008. The non-profit seeks to inspire and engage everyone, particularly the straight community, to become involved in the advancement of LGBT equality and to raise awareness of and bring an end to LGBT youth who are experiencing homelessness.
In April 2010, the non-profit launched the Give a Damn Campaign (www.wegiveadamn.org), an innovative online public education and awareness initiative encouraging the straight community to get involved and for the LGBT community to reach out to the straight people in their lives. The campaign, in part, produces call-to-action videos that have featured notable people such as Elton John, Whoopi Goldberg, Susan Sarandon, Ricky Martin, Jason Mraz, Anna Paquin, Mariska Hargitay, JesseTyler Ferguson, Alan Cumming, Cynthia Nixon, Lily Tomlin, Pete Wentz, Piper Perabo, Idina Menzel, Sharon & Kelly Osbourne, Judith Light, Margaret Cho and Wanda Sykes.This summer, the True Colors Fund will unveil its newest initiative that it has been developing over the past year to provide a national voice and resource to help gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender youth who are experiencing homelessness. Cyndi and the True Colors Fund look forward to launching this new program this June in conjunction with National LGBT Pride Month.

Phyllis Siegel is a native New Yorker and Connie Kopelov came from Kokomo, Indiana. They met in 1986 at a SAGE women’s discussion group, but it wasn’t until the SAGE annual holiday party in 1987 that they started dating. They had many friends then and went to many parties and social events. Phyllis and Connie also learned that they both came from middle-class, liberal union families…which formed the basis of their relationship. It was Connie who made Phyllis aware of feminism and what that meant to them, as women and lesbians.
After over 20 wonderful years as a couple, Phyllis & Connie legally tied the knot on July 24th, 2011 – becoming the first legally married same-sex couple in New York.