A sea of rainbow colors blanketed Columbus yesterday as Star Trek actor George Takei kicked off the 33rd-annual Columbus Pride parade at Front and Broad streets. "I'm on a high," a grinning Takei said before leading the parade north on High Street to Goodale Park. "Even before I get on my float, I have taken selfie after selfie. It's going to be a fantastic, unbelievable and surreal day."

A sea of rainbow colors blanketed Columbus yesterday as Star Trek actor George Takei kicked off the 33rd-annual Columbus Pride parade at Front and Broad streets.

"I'm on a high," a grinning Takei said before leading the parade north on High Street to Goodale Park. "Even before I get on my float, I have taken selfie after selfie. It's going to be a fantastic, unbelievable and surreal day."

Takei and his husband, Brad, led the parade in a float decorated with his catchphrase - "Oh my" - which gained popularity when he appeared on Howard Stern's radio show, and a replica of the starship Enterprise,

Takei's home as Hikaru Sulu in the Star Trek television show and movies.

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>> Photos:2014 Stonewall Columbus Pride Parade

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Pulsating rhythms of techno hits accompanied Takei, 77, and more than 150 floats in the parade, which was part of the Columbus Pride festival celebration. Organizers expected the events to attract more than 400,000 and cost more than $280,000.

For the parade, Nationwide Insurance doled out miniature Pride flags to its more than 100 volunteers, who shouted "Happy Pride" as they walked the 1-mile route.

Floats sporting rainbow fringe blared music as their truck beds overflowed with dancing participants.

Drag queens in 5-inch bejeweled heels stopped to take photos with troves of parade-goers.

Campaigning candidates such as Ohio Democrats Ed Fitzgerald, running for governor, and David Pepper, running for attorney general, shook hands and touted their political alliance with the LGBT community.

Marchers and parade-goers alike wore multicolored shirts, shorts, skirts, headbands, belts and overalls. Some dressed in Technicolor from head to toe, while many opted for a simple pair of monochromatic sneakers and a Speedo in the rainbow colors of the gay-pride flag. Some women went topless.

"This is one day we get to come out here and be ourselves and not be judged," said Octavia Hickman, a gay black woman and Columbus resident who danced with a "Born This Way" flag in one pocket and a Pride flag in the other as she watched the parade.

Around 500 volunteers plastered the festival's slogan, "Created Equal," across their shirts, with a rainbow Pride flag torn apart in the center of an outline of Ohio, symbolizing their fight for gay rights in the state.

"This is about spreading the word," Takei said. "Ohio is a battlefield state for the ideals of America. Equality is something that America stands for throughout the history of our nation. What we are doing today is challenging, marching and debating equality for all Americans."

Takei was rated the most-influential person on Facebook by

Mashable.com with

6.3 million likes.

Karla Rothan, executive director of Stonewall Columbus, which organizes the festival, said Takei was the choice to lead the parade because of his gay-rights advocacy and social activism.

"When he was a little boy, he was held in a Japanese internment camp during World War II," she said. "He was a fitting grand marshal to choose because he is one of our own in a sense, and he can highlight issues in a significant way because of his life experiences and humanitarian work."

Last summer, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the federal Defense of Marriage Act and California's Proposition 8, making same-sex marriage legal in California. In Ohio, same-sex marriage is banned, but a federal judge in Cincinnati ruled recently that the state had to recognize gay marriages from other states. That ruling is being appealed.

Marching alongside yesterday's parade were about 200 protesters carrying signs with red X's over gay-rights symbols. Some shouted biblical passages about the definition of marriage.

Takei took it in stride.

"I would predict within the next two years, there will be a challenge on the ban of marriage equality in Ohio that the Supreme Court has ruled unconstitutional," he said. "Certainly, in Ohio, you will get it."

mwiner@dispatch.com

@MadeleineWiner