KESQ.COM News Services

PALM SPRINGS - Activist Cleve Jones will be grand marshal of today's 23rd annual Palm Springs Pride Parade.
   More than 20,000 people were expected to show up for this weekend's
parade and festival, themed ``Your Rights, Our Rights, Human Rights.''
   The parade begins at 10 a.m. on Palm Canyon Drive between Alejo and
Ramon roads.
   Jones, a Palm Springs resident, served as an historical consultant on
Gus Van Sant's film ``Milk'' about slain activist Harvey Milk, a San Francisco
County supervisor who was the first openly gay man elected to public office in
California. Jones was a student intern in Milk's office when the latter was
killed in 1978.
   Since the onset of the AIDS epidemic, Jones has been working to educate
people about the disease.
    It was Jones who conceived the idea of an AIDS Memorial Quilt. The
assembled squares, each containing a victim's name, now reportedly weighs about
54 tons and ranks as the biggest piece of folk art on the planet.
   Jones, 55, is a member of the International Advisory Board of the
Harvard AIDS Institute and a board member of the Foundation for AIDS and Immune
Research.
   Palm Springs Mayor Steve Pougnet, his partner and their two children
will participate in the parade, along with Mayor Pro Tem Chris Mills and
Councilwoman Ginny Foat, who were recently reelected, and fellow council
members Rick Hutcheson and Lee Weigel and their families.