It's been a rocky ten months for SF Pride since the controversy first erupted among board members and others over the appointment of Chelsea (then Bradley) Manning to be an honorary Grand Marshall in the San Francisco Pride celebration, including a dramatic election in September that saw some new and more progressive board members elected to represent the LGBTQ community. Now, today, is the last chance for the public to weigh in on which controversial or non-controversial figures they'd like to see sitting in the backs of convertible cars this June.
Nominations are being taken through the end of their general membership meeting today at [email protected] for three categories: Community Grand Marshal (a local hero), Organizational Grand Marshal (nonprofit LGBTQ contributing organization), and Pink Brick Award Recipient (an entity/person that has harmed LGBTQ). The membership meeting starts at 7 p.m. at Eureka Valley Rec Center, and it's unclear when it will end.
The Board will be selecting a slate of no more than 10 Community Grand Marshals, all of whom must fit the following criteria: individuals living in the nine-counties of the SF Bay Area (Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, and Sonoma counties) who have made lasting contributions to the SF Bay Area LGBTQ community, or, as LGBTQ individuals, contributed to the welfare of the Ally community.
It sounds like that rules out the nomination of anyone "honorary" from the national landscape, but we'll see. There will also be celebrity marshals voted on by the Board alone. These were last year's.
This year's SF Pride celebration and parade will happen on Sunday June 29 from 10:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.
