Glide’s 2008 Pride Weekend festivities celebrate its remarkable history at the forefront of LGBT rights in San Francisco and the crucial services it continues to provide to the community. Money raised from the various Pride weekend activities will benefit Glide’s HIV/AIDS and Health Services.
Founder Reverend Cecil Williams and Founding President Janice Mirikitani have been actively in the struggle for LGBT rights in San Francisco since the 1960s, when Reverend Williams began performing same-sex unions and Mirikitani advised and defended LGBT street youth. Glide’s new minister Dr. Karen Oliveto performed the first legal gay marriage inside the United Methodist Church in 2004 after Mayor Gavin Newsom declared same-sex marriages legal in the city of San Francisco, which generated worldwide attention.
Glide has been leader in providing HIV/AIDS services to marginalized populations since 1988, when there were no HIV services that targeted homeless and street people in the Tenderloin. To meet this need Glide now provides Rapid HIV Testing, Counseling and Linkages, a leading edge intervention that GHS helped pilot in San Francisco in 2003.
The May 15, 2008 decision of the California Supreme Court declaring the ban on same-sex marriages unconstitutional adds a heightened excitement and energy to our activism and celebrations this year.
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