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Utah's gay and lesbian community enjoyed fun under the sun at the annual Pride Day parade and festival Sunday - along with a good-sized dose of politics.
Amid the floats, community groups and drag-queen royalty going up State Street and down 200 East in downtown Salt Lake City, a dozen current or would-be officeholders walked or rode in the parade.
State Sen. Scott McCoy, a Democrat from Salt Lake City and one of two openly gay members of the Utah Legislature, said it shows the growing clout of Utah's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) community.
"Candidates realize the LGBT community is politically active and politically engaged," McCoy said. "We represent a good chunk of votes."
And several candidates, all Democrats except for a handful of third-party office-seekers, tried to sway a few votes from the estimated 15,000 people enjoying food and music on Library Square and Washington Square after the parade.
"It's about getting out into the community," said Sim Gill, Democratic candidate for Salt Lake County district attorney. "It's a good way to interact, and get the message out and be a part of a community celebration."
Jim Winder, the Democrat running for Salt Lake County sheriff, said, "Every community in Salt Lake deserves representation, and most importantly they deserve public safety."
For some politicians, the LGBT community isn't a group to visit - it's their base.
Christine Johnson, a real estate agent running in this month's Democratic Party primary for the District 25 House seat, said she's out to show voters that the gay community's issues are also their issues.
"I can be gay, but my constituents care about the fact that I'm for everything that we're all for, because there are certain things that are gender nonspecific, like health care and clean air and quality education," said Johnson, whose primary opponent, Josh Ewing, also was campaigning Sunday.
Jane Marquardt, board chairwoman for the political advocacy group Equality Utah, said the politicians' turnout "shows me that people are listening" to the LGBT community.
"As political leaders meet articulate citizens who want to talk about various issues, who also say, 'and I'm gay' . . . that will start to change opinions," she said.
The political awakening of Utah's LGBT community started, McCoy said, with the 2004 passage of Amendment 3, which placed a ban on same-sex civil marriage in the Utah Constitution.
"That was the point at which the gay community said, 'That's it, that's enough,' " McCoy said. With groups like Equality Utah organizing to fight Amendment 3, "it allowed us to have meaningful conversations with our straight neighbors. . . . And all that is now focused on the political process."
Much of that focus Sunday was on President George W. Bush's drive, including a White House event today, to amend the U.S. Constitution to ban gay marriage.
Patrick Guerriero, national president of the Log Cabin Republicans, a group of gay members of the GOP, urged festival attendees to call the White House switchboard and their senators to tell them to "stop wasting time in Washington, and messing with my family and my constitution."
Boyer Jarvis, the 83-year-old human rights activist who served as the parade's grand marshal, delivered a message to "my fellow heterosexuals": "It is up to us to come out and tell everyone that we know - our neighbors, our families, the people that we work with - that we are gay-friendly, and we are in favor of gay marriage, the sooner the better."
Some chose to show their support of gay marriage symbolically. One of the festival's more popular booths, run by the Utah AIDS Foundation, gave dozens of couples the chance to take part in a simulated wedding ceremony - complete with veils, top hats, plastic bouquets, wedding photos and a certificate pledging commitment "as long as Pride Day lasts."
One such couple was Lindsey Lee, 20, and Ashley Dennis, 17, both of Holladay. They did it, Dennis said happily, "because I love this girl to death, and I don't care what anybody thinks."