“My son is more important than the gossip going around the neighborhood” – Jeanne Manford

Morty & Jeanne Manford

Morty invited his mother to march alongside him in the Christopher Street Liberation Day Parade, which is described as a predecessor to the New York City Gay Pride Parade. She did, carrying a sign that read: “Parents of Gays: Unite in Support for Our Children.”

The response, she later recalled, was overwhelming. She was said to have thought that the profuse cheering was for the man marching behind her — child-care guru Benjamin Spock. In fact, it was for her.

“As we marched,” she told the New York Daily News years later, “people came up and hugged me and cried and talked about their own parents. I had no idea so many people felt that way.”

The parade further convinced her of the need for an organization to support families such as hers. The group, originally known of Parents of Gays, met for the first time on March 11, 1973, in a Manhattan church. Today PFLAG says it has 350 chapters and 200,000 supporters across the country.

Jeanne Manford, founder of PFLAG, dies at 92 – The Washington Post

You can’t have health without equality • Love always wins

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Ted Eytan, MD