Pasadena Star News: In a Tournament of Roses first, two Los Angeles men will celebrate their gay marriage on a Rose Parade float as it goes down Colorado Boulevard on New Year’s Day.
The wedding of Danny Leclair, 45, and Aubrey Loots, 42, will take place atop a giant wedding cake-shaped float sponsored by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, according to a press release. It is the third float sponsored by the foundation.
“One of the things we’re really excited about is we’re standing on the shoulders of thousands of men and women who came before us in this fight for marriage equality,” Leclair said. “We’re excited to be part of that story, to be able to do this because of them. We’re looking forward to honor that.”
This Rose Parade is the first year gay marriage has been legal in California following the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in June.
Loots and Leclair own Studio DNA Salons, a chain of L.A. area hair salons.
The float’s theme is “Love is the Best Protection.” It will feature a large wedding cake, decorated in white coconut chips and maroon-colored kidney beans with white roses and dendrobium orchids.
Leclair posted the news on his Facebook page Sunday with the note: “Umm??…??those two tiny men on top of the float is us! Hee Hee?…”
The first-ever live wedding during the annual Rose Parade took place in 1989. It was called the “most widely witnessed wedding in American history.”
Leclair and Boots will take their vows before the nearly 500,000 people who will line Colorado Boulevard on Jan. 1 and millions of television viewers watching around the globe.
Leclair said he was recently in Pasadena to attend the flea market at the Rose Bowl and was stopped at a red light on Colorado Boulevard when he saw the grandstands that have been put up for the parade. “I got a little knot in my stomach,” he said.
Leclair, a native of Canada, and Loots, who is from South Africa, met 12 years ago at a Los Angeles nightclub. They celebrated a commitment ceremony 10 years ago, “Well before it was a even a possibility we could get married,” Leclair said.
Leclair said he and Loots weren’t planning on getting married anytime soon, but he applied to be a part of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation float when he was at a gay wedding expo in October.
He said the theme of the float inspired him. “Love comes in many forms and should be honored and should be celebrated,” he said.
The couple is starting a social media campaign and urging people to declare their love for a person, group or place on their wedding day, Jan. 1, and share it on social media with the hashtag #loveexperiment. They will then compile the messages on a website.
Love is the best protection? Perhaps they haven’t heard of the medical consequences of homosexual behaviors:
“Sexual relationships between members of the same sex expose gays, lesbians and bisexuals to extreme risks of Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs), physical injuries, mental disorders and even a shortened life span.”
But hey, love comes in many forms…NAMBLA would approve of that! I’ll be skipping the parade this year.
DCG
