'Love always wins': Messages of support to Orlando at Twin Cities Pride
The Twin Cities Pride parade Sunday morning capped off a weekend of festivities to celebrate the LGBT community.
Hundreds of people lined Hennepin Avenue in downtown Minneapolis for the 2016 Ashley Rukes GLBT Pride Parade.
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A record number of people have been celebrating the 44th annual Pride festival this weekend – on Saturday, about 100,000 people visited Minneapolis' Loring Park, FOX 9 reports.
The event was expected to draw even more people than usual after the fatal shooting at an Orlando gay nightclub earlier this month, organizers told BringMeTheNews.
“Retreating out of fear is natural instinct – but we must not let fear keep us from dancing,” Dot Belstler, executive director of Twin Cities Pride, said in a statement prior to this year's event. “Love will always triumph over hate.”
Tributes to Orlando
Pride organizers honored the victims of the Orlando shooting throughout the weekend.
At the start of the parade, people walked with the name and photo of the 49 people killed in the shooting.
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Any money dropped into the flag was donated, some of it to Orlando.
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Pride also remembered Prince at the concert Saturday night.
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Sunday marked LGBT Equality Day
There was also a lot to celebrate on Sunday, which is national LGBT Equality Day. It also marked the one-year anniversary of when the Supreme Court ruled same-sex marriage is legal in all 50 states.
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See more photos from this weekend's events on Instagram and Twitter.