Gays, Lesbians Celebrate on Eve of Rights March : Protest: Day of festive events includes a symbolic mass wedding and a human chain around the Capitol.

WASHINGTON — This normally button-down government city took on a decidedly festive air Saturday as throngs of homosexuals crowded into the capital on the eve of today’s massive gay-rights march.

Gays and lesbians spontaneously cheered each other on packed subways, demonstrated at the Capitol and attended scores of events ranging from a symbolic mass wedding for hundreds of same-sex couples to a soccer tournament on the Mall.

The purpose of today’s demonstration, which begins at 9 a.m. PDT, is to advance issues that gay activists view as critical: a government policy allowing homosexuals to serve openly in the military, legislation protecting them from discrimination and increased funding for AIDS research.

A number of Saturday’s events carried those themes, but the day was largely given over to socializing and celebration.

Some parts of the nation’s capital looked like San Francisco or West Hollywood on gay-pride weekend as crowds milled about, snapping up march T-shirts and “Stop the Right” buttons. Same-sex couples at times outnumbered the non-gay tourists on the Mall, holding hands under the monuments and blossoming cherry trees.

“For the moment, we’re the majority. It’s a real affirmation,” said Rob Towle, a San Francisco utility company worker who was in town with his boyfriend.

The program for the march’s nearly 300 related events is 96 pages long, and nearly half was devoted to Saturday.

From a reunion of black military veterans to religious services at the National Cathedral and from black-tie fund-raisers to receptions for gay veterinarians and Red Cross staff members, the weekend’s activities paid testament to the gay cry that “we are everywhere.”

The “S/M Leather Fetish Conference” held an exhibit of leather paraphernalia in a formally decorated auditorium across the street from the National Museum of American History. But other than occasional puzzled glances from people on a tourist bus, no one seemed to pay much heed to the leather-clad crowd chatting on the stone steps.

At one reception, a 1992 Army Soldier of the Year declared that he is gay, defying the military ban on homosexuals.

“The Army promotes integrity and honor above all things,” Sgt. Jose M. Zuniga said in an interview with the Associated Press. “A soldier of the year should be able to live honorably and should not have to lie.”

Zuniga, who has been stationed at the Presidio in San Francisco, received awards for saving lives and maintaining troop morale as a combat medic and an Army journalist in Saudi Arabia. He was named 1992 Soldier of the Year of the U.S. 6th Army, which includes units in 12 Western states.

He recalled that as a lieutenant general pinned a commendation medal to his chest in the Soldier of the Year ceremony in March, he thought: “If he only knew that I was gay, not only would he not pin this medal on me, but he’d also personally sign the discharge papers to get me out of the Army as soon as possible.”

At midday, thousands of men and women formed a human chain, several deep, around the approximately 16 square blocks of lawns surrounding the U.S. Capitol to draw attention to their demand that the government boost its role in the fight against AIDS.

“Keep your backs turned on Congress because Congress has turned its back on AIDS,” they were told by AIDS activist Mike Petrelis as the group fanned out to ring the Capitol grounds along a course marked by an 8,000-foot red ribbon.

But their real focus was President Clinton, absent from the city for the weekend and, they argued, absent from the leadership role they believe he promised when he spoke about AIDS during the 1992 presidential campaign.

In remarks to the group, author Larry Kramer, founder of the Gay Men’s Health Crisis and the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT-UP), let loose a tirade aimed at the President who had gained unprecedented political support from the gay community.

“It has been six months since Bill the welsher got elected. What have the six months brought us?” Kramer said at a rally. “Bill the welsher has announced no AIDS program. Bill the welsher has announced no AIDS czar.”

The White House had said Clinton would be unable to take part in any of the weekend’s events because he would be meeting Saturday with Democratic senators in Jamestown, Va., roughly an hour away by helicopter, and delivering a speech to newspaper editors in Boston today.

Clinton left Washington on Saturday morning and arrived in Williamsburg, Va., near Jamestown, at 9:15 a.m. But rather than meeting immediately with the senators, as planned, he began an apparently impromptu round of sightseeing at Jamestown National Park, accompanied by his daughter, Chelsea, and others.

He did not arrive at the Democratic conference until after 1 p.m.

Elsewhere in Washington, a crowd watched the mass wedding, conducted by the Rev. Troy Perry of Los Angeles’ Metropolitan Community Church.

Massed in front of the Internal Revenue Service building, the couples vowed to love and care for their partners as hundreds of people looked on.

Calvin Wheatley of Edgewood, Md., beamed as he clutched his partner of 12 years, Ronnie Norman, both workers for a grocery distribution firm.

Norman’s sister, Judy Blevins, took pictures and after the ceremony a friend added their names to a mosaic of hearts chalked on a blocklong stretch of street.

“I love him,” Blevins said. “I support my brother in everything he does unless I think it’s bad, and then I correct him.”

Among the onlookers were Janet Cook and Nancy Dillingham of Long Island, N.Y., who journeyed south “to show the country that we’re regular people like everyone else,” said Dillingham, who met Cook at a meeting of the Daughters of the American Revolution.

The DAR is also holding a convention in Washington this week and the two, descendants of Revolutionary War soldiers, were debating whether they should show up at the DAR banquet festooned with their gay-rights buttons.

“I don’t think we’re that brave,” Dillingham said.

The gay crowds left some tourists looking rather wide-eyed. “I think we came on the wrong weekend,” said Mary Ellen Webster as she stood on a busy subway platform with her husband and three daughters.

They said they had come from New Hampshire, only recently learning that their long-planned trip coincided with what is expected to the biggest gay rights march in the nation’s history.

“It will be an education for the children,” Webster said.

Times staff writer Robert L. Jackson contributed to this story from Williamsburg.

TV Coverage of Gay Rights March

C-SPAN will have continuous live coverage of today’s gay and lesbian equal rights march beginning at 10 a.m. The event is expected to last until 4 p.m. C-SPAN will replay its coverage at 11 p.m.

Cable News Network plans reports on the march at 6 a.m., 9 a.m., 2 p.m. and 3 p.m. ABC, CBS and NBC will have coverage on their regularly scheduled nightly newscasts and in their morning public affairs and news programs.

Key Objectives

While participants in the gay rights march have varying reasons for taking part, organizers have drawn up an agenda of seven demands central to today’s demonstration:

Passage of a lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans-gender civil rights bill to end discrimination by state and federal governments, including the military. Repeal of sodomy laws.

A massive increase in funding for AIDS education, research and patient care. Universal access to health care.

Legislation to prevent discrimination against lesbians, gays, bisexuals and trans-gendered people in the areas of family diversity, custody, adoption and foster care.

Equal inclusion in the educational system and inclusion of gay and lesbian studies in multicultural curricula.

Reproductive freedom and choice.

An end to racial and ethnic discrimination.

An end to discrimination and “violent oppression” based on actual or perceived sexual orientation, race, religion, identity, disability, age, class or infection with AIDS or HIV.

Source: Los Angeles Times