33rd Annual Pride Parade and Festival Scheduled for July 21-22

Spirit of Stonewall' Celebration on July 15

San Diego Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Pride will hold its 33rd annual parade and festival on July 21-22. This year's theme is "United for Equality. The weekend festivities will kick off with a Spirit of Stonewall Community Celebration a week earlier, at 3:30 p.m., July 15, at the Organ Pavilion in Balboa Park, to commemorate the 1969 Stonewall Uprising in New York's Greenwich Village, which is considered to be the commencement of the contemporary Lesbian and Gay liberation movement.  Community members will also be publicly recognized for their contributions to the community.

The mile-long parade will feature nearly 200 floats and contingents. It starts at 11:00 a.m., on July 21, at University Avenue and Normal Street, continues west on University to Sixth Avenue, then south on Sixth to Upas, ending at Balboa Drive. This year's route will feature additional reviewing stands, as well as special sections reserved for baby strollers and an expanded, tented area for seniors. More than 150,000 people are expected at the event.

Pride's community parade grand marshal is Bruce Abrams, a San Diego attorney and a commissioner of the Mayor's San Diego Human Relations Commission.

The parade will be followed by a two-day festival at Marston Point in Balboa Park, which includes multiple stages for nearly 100 live performances, expanded beverage gardens, food booths, an art exhibit, dance floors and a host of new attractions.

Festival hours are from noon to 10:00 p.m., Saturday, July 21; and from 11:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., Sunday, July 22. Admission is $15 for a one-day pass or $21 for a two-day pass.

Additionally, San Diego LGBT Pride has teamed up with the San Diego Padres to present a pre-Pride game event that gives recognition to participants and volunteers of Pride. The game is scheduled for 5:05 p.m., Sunday, July 8 at PETCO Park, as the Padres take on the Atlanta Braves. The San Diego Gay Men's Chorus will sing the national anthem. Discounted tickets have been made available to the LGBT community on Pride's web site: www.SanDiegoPride.org, and by entering the code word "Pride."

Top sponsors of this year's Pride event include seven Fortune 500 companies: General Motors; Sempra Energy; Anheuser-Busch; AT&T, Cox Communications, Wells Fargo and Hewlett Packard, all of which offer diversity programs and domestic partnership benefits that extend into the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community. Dozens of local businesses and organizations are also supporting the event.

For updated information about the 2007 Pride celebration, call (619) 297-7683 or visit the web site at: www.SanDiegoPride.org.