Colorful Costumes Come Out for Gay Pride Parades

(June 28) -- Forget the holiday season; June is the time of year when people don their gayest apparel.

Cities around the world celebrated gay pride parades last weekend, allowing gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer communities to come together, often in costume.

Revelers marched through New York City, San Francisco, Chicago, Mexico City, Berlin and Guatemala City, among other locations, dressed in elaborate get-ups in all shades of the rainbow.

Some sported multicolored ensembles with rainbow flags, wigs and capes. Others took to the streets dressed like gay icons including Lady Gaga and Batman and Robin.

While the parades have become known for their over-the-top costumes, they have a long history as important gatherings within the LGBTQ community.

Most gay pride events fall around the last weekend in June to commemorate New York City's Stonewall Riots, which broke out after police raided a gay bar on June 28, 1969 -- an event often considered the start of the gay rights movement.

While the parades continue to grow more and more festive with evermore elaborate costumes and floats, they continue to serve as important political and social gatherings for the gay community, where issues like marriage, equality and civil rights are never far from the forefront.

So it's no surprise that the grand marshal of this year's New York City parade was Constance McMillen, an 18-year-old from Mississippi whose high school prom was called off because she planned to bring her girlfriend. Honored as co-marshals were Judy Shepard, whose 21-year-old son Matthew Shepard was killed in a 1998 hate crime, and Lt. Dan Choi, a West Point graduate and Iraq War veteran facing military discharge after he protested the controversial "don't ask, don't tell" policy.

San Francisco's 40th Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Pride Parade and Celebration -- which featured a performance by the Backstreet Boys and a video address by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi -- was unfortunately marred by the shooting death of a 19-year-old man who was gunned down during a nighttime street celebration in the Castro district on June 26.

In Chicago -- a city apparently still fired up after its recent Stanley Cup victory -- revelers partied alongside the National Hockey League's iconic trophy as it made its way down the parade route -- marking the first time the Stanley Cup was included in a gay pride parade.

And in Mexico City, gay pride marchers took to the streets for the first time since the Mexican capital became the first Latin American city to legalize gay marriage.