San Diego Pride Honors Two Longtime Couples at Summer Celebration

San Diego LGBT Pride will honor two longtime "Inspiration Couples" at this year's Pride celebration, scheduled for July 21-22. Their recognition extends to the scores of other lifetime partnerships formed within the LGBT community.

Cynthia Lawrence and Peggy Heathers of Allied Gardens will celebrate their 35th anniversary in July. They met at a friend's brunch gathering in Santee "at a time when bars were the only alternative for meeting other women," notes Lawrence, a retired teacher from USCD who currently works as a graduate advisor for students at Western Institute for Social Research in Berkeley.

Heathers is a retired social worker from the County of San Diego and served on the county's Human Relations Commission before the city started its own commission. She had also served on the original committee that started The Center in the early 1970s, when it was located at 22nd and B streets. As a couple, the women launched the Center's women's program and Heathers later started the women's caucus for the San Diego Democratic Club and was manager for the San Diego Women's Chorus, of which Lawrence founded.

The couple currently enjoys taking motor home trips throughout the region about once a month.

Jerry Peterson and Bob Smith have been together for 40 years and reside in Cortez Hill. They met at a dinner party in Chula Vista and have been longtime supporters of numerous LGBT organizations, serving often as "table captains" at fundraising events. Both men are avid power boaters, and Peterson is the owner of Jerry and David's Cruises and Tours, a tour company geared for LGBT travelers that he started with a friend 17 years ago. In addition, he started The Bridge in 1970, a local home for runaways, and he also served on The Center's original committee a few years later.

Smith is a semi-retired doctor who held in family practice in Chula Vista before branching out into the LGBT community in 1991, when he opened the Robert S. Smith Medical Group on Sixth Avenue. There, he specialized in treating people with HIV.

The couple regularly attends performances by the San Diego Men's Chorus (editor's note: different than the "Gay" Men's Chorus). "We went to their first concert some 20 years ago in the basement of the US Grant Hotel, and we've attended almost every concert since then," says Peterson. The couple also took part in many early Pride parades and rallies in San Diego and continue to support the celebration.

This year's 33rd annual Pride celebration, titled "United for Equality," is scheduled for July 21-22. The festivities include an outdoor rally at the festival grounds in Balboa Park on July 15, a mile-long parade down University Avenue in Hillcrest at 11 a.m., July 21, and a two-day festival on July 21-22 featuring multiple performance stages, expanded beer gardens and a host of new attractions.

For more informationplease visit the Pride Volunteer web site at www.sdpride.org or call 297-7683 x 3.