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Greater Manchester Police handing out "Alan Turing Sunflowers" from their "Hate Crime - Report it" float at the 2012 Manchester Pride Procession.

Manchester Pride is the current name of the annual Gay Pride festival held Manchester. The event began in the second half of the 1980's as a jumble sale outside the Rembrandt Hotel (Link ). It is one of the longest running in the country and attracts thousands of visitors to the city's Gay Village, which centres around Canal Street, each year. The ten-day festival culminates in "The Big Weekend", a 72-hour party in Canal Street and the surrounding area over the August bank holiday weekend.

The Manchester Pride Parade is the highlight of the Big Weekend and the biggest Parade in Manchester! The Parade is promoted as a fun way to celebrate the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community in Greater Manchester, the UK and overseas, and to raise awareness of the issues around HIV. More than 100 floats made their way through the city centre, setting off from Deansgate and ending on Whitworth Street at the gay village.

The theme for this year’s Manchester Pride Parade is “Queer’d Science”, in honour of “Father of computer science, mathematician, logician, wartime code breaker and victim of prejudice,” Alan Turing. The gay computer pioneer was prosecuted for gross indecency for having relations with another man in 1952, when homosexual acts were illegal in the UK. He died from cyanide poisoning two years later and it was ruled at his inquest that he had committed suicide.

A number of charities, venues, public sector bodies, housing authorities, political parties and commercial organisations take part in the parade each year.

Link Manchester Pride Web site

Link BBC News.