Rothenberg said that at 81 he was being honored for “hanging around,” but he got one of the biggest hands of the evening.Ĭouncilman Daniel Dromm congratulates David Rothenberg. Mel Rivers, one of the ex-offenders, told him, “You stood alongside us for six years.
Rothenberg decided to come out on David Susskind’s TV show in 1973 and met with his colleagues at the Fortune Society to offer his resignation. “Before Stonewall, I was deeply closeted,” he said. Rothenberg talked about being inspired by his first political hero - Jackie Robinson, who broke the color barrier in baseball - to go down to challenge Washington, DC’s segregation in 1952. Marinoni quoted her wife Cynthia Nixon, who famously said, “I’ve been straight and I’ve been gay and I can tell you that gay is better.” She also praised the out members of the de Blasio administration, including “community organizer” Emma Wolfe, the mayor’s director of intergovernmental relations, and “scores of others,” whom she cited by first names, for “doing good progressive work.” Out gay Councilman Corey Johnson, a Democrat who represents the West Village, Chelsea, and Hell’s Kitchen, honored Christine Marinoni for her pioneering work with the Alliance for Quality Education and for “getting arrested with ACT UP.” Marinoni, appointed to the Department of Education by Mayor Bill de Blasio as a special adviser for community partnerships, praised the diverse Council LGBT caucus as a group that is “truly progressive, speaking to issues well beyond those that affect them directly.”Ĭouncilman Corey Johnson with Christine Marinoni and her wife Cynthia Nixon.
Del Duca said that “as we celebrate our collective achievements, we should pause to remember those who go about their lives openly” here and abroad in places where it is not as easy as in New York. Ritchie Torres, a Democrat elected to the Council at 25 and the first out LGBT official from the Bronx, honored veteran political activist Paul del Duca, chief of staff to Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr., who was also on hand.
Among other things, he called for “an end to the cooperation between local law enforcement and ICE,” the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement unit.Ĭouncilman Ritchie Torres, the first out LGBT elected official in the Bronx. Strangio, a staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union’s LGBT and AIDS Project, said that despite the community’s advances, “the struggle is real and immediate” for many, especially transgender folks and immigrants. She kicked off the Pride celebration with a tribute to the late activist and drag king Stormé Delarverie, who died at 94 last month, and by honoring transgender activist Chase Strangio, founder of the Lorena Borjas Community Fund that provides bail and bond help to LGBTQ immigrants in criminal and immigration cases. Patrick’s Day parade in March.ĭiversity and a progressive commitment on display in Cooper Union’s Great Hall Melissa Mark-Viverito, who succeeded out lesbian Christine Quinn as Council speaker, said that the LGBT community “is my political and personal family,” talked about her two gay brothers, and promised to be “a fierce advocate and ally” - something she demonstrated when she pulled the Council’s banner from the anti-gay St. City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito | DONNA ACETO