The annual Cape Town Gay Pride Parade kicked off with colourful floats and ritzy dress today where rainbows of resplendent colour, music and festive cheer were what characterised the pride.
Organisers want gay rights better protected. Festival Director Gareth Dallas says: "We are here to celebrate our queerness our beautifulness our trans gender folk, our inter sex folk. But also to put a little bit of a spot light on issues such as corrective rape in South Africa and how wrong that is and why it needs to change."
There were also calls for South Africa to distance itself from Uganda because of its anti gay stance. Gay Rights activist Melanie Nathan says: "How can South Africa welcome Museveni (Ugandan president) in this country, and thank him, and then go and invest in Uganda when they are killing and wanting to kill gay, lesbian, bisexual people, trans gender too."
Cape- largest, brightest
Cape Town Pride is the one of largest gay and lesbian events in South Africa and one of the biggest in Africa. Its origin is to celebrate the pride in Gay and Lesbian Culture and to celebrate diversity since the unbanning of apartheid. Cape Town Gay Pride usually runs from the end of February and is a week of a number of festivals, parties and events.
In December 2010, the LGBT community of South Africa launched their very own official South African gay flag at the annual MCQP event held in Cape Town.
