New York ? Hundreds of thousands of raucous parade-goers took to the streets from New York to San Francisco on Sunday for annual gay pride parades, just weeks after an attack on a popular gay singer in New York and the 25th anniversary of the start of the AIDS epidemic.

Outrageous costumes were the norm along the parade routes.

In New York, the floats and marchers turned Fifth Avenue into a sea of rainbows.

Thousands lined Market Street for San Francisco’s 36th annual Gay Pride parade. Marching bands, dancers and floats bearing corporate logos of such companies as Delta Airlines and Wells Fargo streamed by.

“There’s much greater acceptance in corporate America,” said Michael Crowe, 63, who said high-profile corporate sponsorship is new to the event.

The New York parade marked the very public and triumphant return of singer Kevin Aviance, who rode atop a fake pachyderm and a circus-themed float weeks after the drag queen was viciously beaten. Police have charged four young men, ages 16 to 20, with assaulting the artist while yelling anti-gay slurs.