San Francisco' Mayor Willie Brown, addressed the most successful city Pride parade in the 29-year history of such events and announced that a million women and men had participated in the celebrations.

As if to add paradox to a vast mix of pride-time outpourings, a Roman Catholic group—without begging the Pope's blessing—took part as marchers for the first time in the parade's history. By doing so, San Francisco's Most Holy Redeemer Parish thereby positioned itself to be either expunged or later celebrated by Roman Catholicism's official record keepers.

As the huge throngs wended their way up Market Street, there seemed an extra spring in the marchers' steps and there were few unwarranted delays. Smiling, exuberant expressions of camaraderie marked faces along almost the entire route.

The only misfortune visited during an otherwise violence-free day was the seizure of a batch of marijuana brownies distributed by a street vendor.

Often marginally-placed in past parades, Leather Pride contingents enjoyed forward positions this year. The Stanford University Marching Band serenaded the crowds. Radical Faeries danced merrily, shaking about their long-hair-styles, decked out in counterculture garb, a pagan ensemble marking the revival of paganism during the final years of the 20th Century a visible fact.

This year's parade organizers were able prevent most cross-traffic tie-ups, and the word went out to all marchers that they must continuously play "catch up" to disallow ungainly spaces between groups.

Rainbow flags flew, proud symbols of unity in diversity, lining the Civic Center's plaza where the celebration-minded masses gathered. Cooler San Francisco weather mandated their additional use of clothing, however, more than in previous parades when reveling half-nude bodies had often welcomed tanning opportunities with flash.

It was when he was on stage that Mayor Willie Brown announced that more than a million had participated in both Saturday's Castro-area celebration and in the Sunday parade as well as the post-parade gathering he was addressing.

Stars such as Alison Moyet and Ultra Naté performed, as did (unexpectedly) Chumbawamba, a British anarchist- commune band.

The Pride Committee's Executive Director, Teddy Witherington, was responsible, according to San Francisco reports, for engineering the afternoon's lineup of top-name talent. Witherington, hired to manage the Pride parade, had first demonstrated his organizing capabilities when running London Pride/