Andrew Ford

@AndrewFordNews

ASBURY PARK - Thousands of rainbows radiated under cloudy skies Sunday as the attendees of the annual New Jersey Statewide LGBT Pride Celebration cheered social progress and vowed to continue their fight for equal rights.

Rainbows adorned shorts, flags, balloons, beads, angel wings, tie-dye shirts, a little girl's cheeks. Thousands of rainbow-clad revelers marched in a parade and gathered for a festival at Bradley Park in the afternoon. They listened to pop music and speeches from New Jersey politicians. They visited booths for fried food and booths for HIV awareness.

"It's a big party," said organizer Laura Pople. "I mean it's more than a party, but it is a party."

"I believe pride events are shared public affirmations of everyone's right to love whomever they choose regardless of their gender or your gender," she said.

Pople, 53, grew up in the suburbs of Pittsburgh, where there wasn't a flourishing gay community at the time.

"I didn't have a way to articulate what I felt," she said.

She said she denied her sexuality for a long time, but when she did come out as gay, she launched into community organizing.

"Eventually it became less of a foreign concept for me to see that I was gay and get involved," she said.

Pople agreed events like the parade and festival, which raise the visibility of the LGBT community, can be helpful for those who might be grappling with the same feelings she faced.

This was the 25th year for the Asbury Park event, and Pople has participated since the beginning. She was president of New Jersey Lesbian and Gay Coalition in 1991 and 1992 when it lobbied for a state law against discrimination. After the activists prevailed, they wanted to host a local event for the people energized and organized by that success. Pople said Asbury Park was chosen because the town was receptive to the LGBT community, and it's a shore location central in the state.

Pople observed leaps and bounds in social progress in the past 25 years — in 1992 her organization worked to prevent discrimination in the workplace, and now same-gender couples can marry. She said the next step is protecting the victories — fighting bills that would restrict access to public restrooms and campaigning against bullying.

Pople said one of the most significant moments for her was when her mother started attending the festival, about five years ago.

"I'm incredibly, incredibly proud of my daughter," her mother, Martha Pople, said.

The Asbury Park festival is intended to be accommodating to families, featuring attractions for kids including a bounce house, rock wall and inflatable slide.

Elizabeth Ferrizzi, 33, came to the festival from Bally, Pennsylvania, with her wife and their two 3-year-old children.

"It's nice to be at an event where you feel completely comfortable being yourself," she said. "It's nice to bring our children to an event where there are other families like ours, so they can see there are other families with two moms, so they don't feel any different."

Ferrizzi finds the Asbury Park event more family-friendly than other LGBT pride events.

"I've been to a couple other ones where there aren't as many family-oriented things I find appropriate for the kids," she said.

On the 25th anniversary of the Asbury Park festival, Ferrizzi noted social progress made for those who are gay and lesbian.

"I think we need more progress with transgender, intersex, those who may not identify with a gender," she said.

Cory Pawlicki, 27, came from Hillside with his wife and 4-month-old son. Pawlicki identified as straight but came to show solidarity with the LGBT community.

"We're supporters," he said. "A lot of family, a lot of friends are in the community."

He's attended the New York City pride event but found it to be over the top.

"Here, it's really relaxed," he said.

Between musicians who performed at the event, Rep. Frank Pallone and U.S. Sen. Cory Booker took to the stage.

"While we stand here today and celebrate, there are thousands of Americans who are being persecuted just because of who they are and who they choose to love," Booker told the crowd.

He said nearly a majority of LGBT teens miss days of school because they're afraid to attend, and Americans have been murdered for being transgender.

"Let us not rest until hate is gone and love reigns supreme," he told the cheering crowd. "God bless everybody."

Andrew Ford: 732-643-4281; aford3@gannettnj.com