CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- St. Louis Pride Parade organizers have told lesbian and gay police officers they are not welcome to march in that city's parade this month because of sensitivities involving the 50th anniversary of Stonewall: the New York police raid that started the gay-rights movement.
Here in Chicago, gay officers say they will march in uniform, as usual.
"We don't want those same officers that raided that bar in Stonewall anymore. We don't want that agenda, and that's why we're out,” Chicago Police Detective Jamie Richardson said.
Chicago’s gay officers got the right to march in uniform in 1992 and haven't looked back, said Richardson, president of the Chicago Lesbian and Gay Police Association/Gay Officers Action League.
“The point of us being there is not advocating for a police department -- it's advocating for us as gay people allowed to be the police, or proud to be the police."
Jonathan Lewin, chief of CPD’s Bureau of Technical Services, recalls an episode from early in his career, in Rogers Park. He responded to a domestic disturbance between two men and asked one of them what had happened.
"And he said, 'You wouldn't understand. I'm gay and you wouldn't understand that,’” Lewin said. "And I said, 'I'm gay too, and I would understand it.'
“And just that connection, to me, was something I was proud that I could make."