Denver’s 35th annual PrideFest took place over the weekend, with roughly 100,000 people watching the parade of floats and people moving down Colfax Avenue toward Civic Center Park downtown on Sunday (via The Denver Post). It was the largest parade ever for the event, according to 9News. A few politicians made appearances in the parade, including Michael Bennet and Andrew Romanoff, the two Democrats competing in the race for U.S. Senate, notes The Associated Press. Meanwhile, the Post examines the effects of the federal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, which prevents people who are openly gay or lesbian from serving in the military. In interviews of nearly two dozen current and former personnel who are gay or lesbian, the newspaper encounters a “system that is inconsistently applied and under stress from a military at war, with many commanders willing to ignore the law rather than lose valuable soldiers.” Moreover, the Post finds that a peer’s knowledge of a service member’s sexuality may turn the policy “into a tool for reprisal or blackmail–or simply crass opportunism.”