New York City is being marketed as a gay tourism destination as Manhattan prepares to mark 40 years since the Stonewall riots this June. The Rainbow Pilgrimage is a website and marketing campaign which will be seen on the city's bus shelters, gay publications and even banners across key streets associated with the LGBT community. The Stonewall riots of 1969, when protesters clashed with police after a violent police raid on a gay bar in Manhattan, were defining moments in the history of the LGBT equality movement. Tourism officials say the new marketing campaign aims to portray a visit to New York "as a 'rite of passage' for the gay and lesbian traveler," reports the New York Times. City Council speaker Christine Quinn explains: "Forty years ago a group of people said enough was enough. And they struck back against police officers. They struck back against unfair treatment. And it created the modern LGBT civil rights movement."
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News Staff
First published: Friday, 10th April 2009 - 10:08am