Venezuela Holds Gay Pride Parade

By ALEXANDRA OLSON

CARACAS, Venezuela - Challenging Venezuela's lingering machismo culture, about 1,500 people marched to drum beats through Caracas on Sunday in the country's first ever gay pride parade.

Dancing to traditional salsa and merengue rhythms and tossing colorful balloons, the marchers attracted the attention of onlookers, usually unimpressed by marches in this protest-weary South American capital.

Homosexuality is legal but seldom discussed in Venezuela, except as the subject of jokes. Gay people complain of harassment - sometimes by police - but politicians and the government generally avoid the subject.

One prominent government official last year called another a homosexual in an attempt to discredit him.

Customers at a sidewalk cafe stopped in mid-chew to gawk at drag queens wearing enormous feather headdresses and people zipping by in roller skates, rainbows painted on their cheeks. Some onlookers shook their heads in disapproval but most cheered on the marchers and clapped to the beat of the drums.

``We're proud to help and collaborate with the cause,'' said Juliana Pinental, who held her girlfriend's hand throughout the march, something she says she usually doesn't dare to do in public.

The parade paled in numbers to Brazil's gay pride parade last month, which boasted an estimated 180,000 people, making in the largest in Latin America. But the Venezuelan marchers insisted simply staging the parade was a triumph.

``If people are afraid to come out and march, fear gains power. We're trying to defeat the power of fear,'' said Jose Merentes, head of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transvestite unit of Venezuela's Amnesty International chapter.

The parade ended in a rally with marchers handing out condoms, singing the national anthem and holding a costume contest.

Merentes said Venezuela's gay rights movement has become stronger and more organized in the last two years with the emergence of several non-governmental organizations to promote homosexual rights.