Gavin Newsom is rock star of LA Pride Parade: “I look forward to the day when we right the wrong of Proposition 8”

It was San Francisco Gavin Newsom’s first LA Pride Parade and he certainly proved to be the event’s rock star.

Instead of riding in the back of an open car like most officials, Newsom walked the parade route down Santa Monica Boulevard Sunday morning on foot. He often made his way from to one side of the street to the other to shake the hands of screaming parade watchers who treated him like a rock star. Behind Newsom was an army of supporters marching and holding colorful Newsom in 2010 signs.

Newsom, who is running to be the Democratic nominee for Governor of California, is wildly popular in the LGBT community for leading the fight for gay marriage over the last five years going so far as to order San Francisco’s city clerk in 2004 to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. While the marriages ultimately did not stand up in court, they did lead to the CA Supreme Court ruling legalized gay marriage last year – before voters passed Proposition 8.

“The issues that define the day and the issues that bring us all together are not new. You think about this: all over the world, nations of people are being literally torn apart because of religious and ethnic controversies that have fueled fanaticism and have fueled terrorism but here we are in West Hollywood … in the most diverse county in the most state in the world’s most diverse democracy. And I believe that the world looks to us to see that it’s possible to live together and advance together and prosper together across every conceivable difference because at the day, that’s what we’re celebrating here at LA Pride. We’re not tolerating it, we’re celebrating it. We’re stepping up and standing and making a statement to the world that this is what it’s all about.”

Newsom also paid tribute to the roots of Gay Pride: the Stonewall Riots which took place in Greewich Village 40 years ago this month and are widely considered to be the beginning of the gay rights movement.

“I’m very thankful to those who couldn’t be here, the people that stood strong and stood tall some 40 years ago in 1969 at Stonewall on June 28 there on Christopher Street. They had the courage of their convictions to say, ‘You know what? We’re no longer going to sit here in the shadows, we’re not longer going to sit here and take it. And they stepped up and they said, ‘You know what? We count. We matter.’ And that’s when history was changed. It wasn’t just changed for Proposition 8. It was changed decades ago when people stood up and fought for principal. There are good days and there are bad days. But we have made an enormous amount of progress in the last 40 years but the march of equality clearly is a long march. And so I look forward to marching with you – all of you. And I look forward to the day when we right the wrong of Proposition 8.”

Coming soon on Greg In Hollywood:

— Newsom and Villariagosa on DOMA filing and Federal Prop. 8 lawsuit

— A photo gallery of today’s parade in West Hollywood