Rhode Island’s first Pride parade took place 50 years ago this month, even though Providence officials, including Mayor Buddy Cianci and city police chief Walter McQueeney, openly expressed opposition to it. With the help of the American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island, a yearly tradition was established that celebrates the state’s LGBTQIA+ community.
Ocean State Media afternoon host Mareva Lindo recently spoke with Stephen Fortunato, who represented the ACLU in the 1976 federal court case that led to the parade.
Interview highlights
On the idea for a Pride Parade in Rhode Island
Stephen Fortunato: It was not common and it certainly came from the grassroots of the gay community. They contacted me through the Rhode Island affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union. I was a cooperating attorney.
You have to go through a permitting process in Providence. The permitting officials should be concerned about things like public safety and traffic control and all that, and not about the content of the message of the marchers or protestors in such a situation. So I called the Chief of Police, Walter McQueeney, who was serving under the mayorship of Buddy Cianci. Walter McQueeney told me when I asked for a permit, “There’ll be no gay pride parade in Providence.” And then he used the term “over my dead body.” And I said, “Well, that tells us where you stand. We’ll see you in federal court.”
Happily, we were in front of federal judge Raymond Pattine, who was a great champion of the First Amendment [and] freedom of expression. So he issued a restraining order and the rest is history. There was a gay pride parade, and there’s been one ever since for the last 50 years so far as I know, without interruption.
On the political and cultural obstacles to hosting a Pride Parade in Rhode Island in 1976
Fortunato: It made it, at times, difficult for the lawyer and for the judge. The judge was a prominent member of the Italo-American community and he was harassed at his private club. I know this from him telling me this later on. People would send him letters with pink ribbons in it and obscenities condemning him and so on. So the culture, like most of Rhode Island culture, or a lot of it, is shaped by a very conservative and reactionary Catholic church. Priests spoke against me from the altar.
I was in politics at the time and was running up in Federal Hill, which is a predominantly Italian district and largely Catholic. And I was challenged, “What kind of a person am I that would represent the gay community trying to have a parade?” I said, “Some of you are probably not sympathetic with the gay parade people or anything, but keep in mind by protecting the rights of the gay community, we’re protecting their rights, but also the rights of everybody else.” An offense to one is an offense to all, at least in the area of civil liberties and civil rights…
I think it’s unfortunate that whether it’s gay people or people of color or disabled people or anybody else, that they have to have marches and protests to get elementary rights. But that’s the unfortunate history. I could throw in labor unions, as well, over time. I mean, none of this came easy for any group that was considered to be outside the pale of so- called normal conduct as defined by, for lack of a better term, the ruling class.
On the legacy of the 1976 Pride Parade case
Fortunato: Well, I think it’s significant. I think it means a lot to the community and Gay Pride parades, as you know, whether they’re in New York City or Provincetown or any place else, have become major social and cultural events which invite the participation of the entire community, meaning some people who are neither gay or trans go and drink and listen to the music and all the rest of it.
I’ll say this about the case and about any civil rights case. The lawyers and the judges often get the coverage from the press, but what is sometimes overlooked is it takes an awful lot of courage on the individual people to speak up, whether it’s an anti-war protestor, whether it’s some student with a grievance, whether it’s somebody running a bookstore or wanting to put on a play or a musical festival or whatever, they’ve got to decide, “I’m not taking this from the government.” And of course, the Bill of Rights is directed against government behavior, which a lot of people seem to forget, including some members of the current Supreme Court of the United States.
