RACINE - There was no need for Bob Warzala to hide the truth this time.

Forty-six years after lying about his sexual orientation to get into the Air Force, the Racine man was among 150 to 200 participants in Sunday's gay rights march through Downtown. Warzala wore a T-shirt proclaiming himself a gay veteran.

Organizers from the social concerns committee at Olympia Brown Unitarian Universalist Church said it was believed to be the first such march in the city. The crowd began at the steps of the church, 625 College Ave., then proceeded with signs and rainbow-colored flags to Monument Square and a small courtyard along Main Street.

At each stop, musicians led the crowd in songs and speakers discussed the economic, political, psychological and family implications of gay rights. The march was held 40 years to the day after the beginning of the Stonewall riots, a series of demonstrations in New York which are credited for fueling the modern gay rights movement.

Warzala entered the Air Force in 1963, six years before that uprising. He said he never regretted keeping the secret, partly because he wanted to serve so badly. But there was something else.

"I knew it was wrong for them to ask me," he said.

He's opposed to the current military policy, dubbed "don't ask, don't tell." All of the money the various branches spend on training is lost when service members are expelled because they're gay, Warzala said.

About a half-dozen protesters stood at various points in the route. Most quietly held signs condemning homosexuality as a sin or handed out religious literature.

"We're not here to confront people with animosity," John Anderson of Mount Pleasant said. "God is a God of love, but he's also a God of judgment."

Protester Drew Heiss of Oak Creek loudly disputed a statement by one of the speakers, the Rev. Edwin Dykstra, that the Bible's definition of sodomy is simply "a sin of inhospitality." Dykstra is a Presbyterian pastor in the Chicago area.

"You know darn well what sodomy is!" Heiss shouted.

Near the end of the route, police warned him and the marchers they couldn't amplify their voices with megaphones or other devices. The event lasted nearly two hours.

Marchers came for many reasons. Holding a sign that read "Straight but Not Narrow," Marilyn Joyce of Racine said she has a son and many friends who are gay. She's the director of religious education at Olympia Brown.

"I love a lot of gay people," she said, "and I'm in favor of love wherever it's found."

One of the speakers, University of Wisconsin-Parkside economics professor Norm Cloutier, said he morally supports gay rights but quoted research indicating an economic component. More tolerant states attract more talented workers, he said.

"Individually, the losses may be small, but in the long run discrimination diminishes us all," he said.

The Rev. Tony Larsen, pastor at Olympia Brown, told the crowd to save the pink flyers that were passed out to commemorate the march. In a few decades, their great-grandchildren may remember this as an important moment in the push for rights, he said.

"You are a part of history today," Larsen said, joking that "They'll bring it to the 'Antiques Roadshow' and it'll be worth a lot of money."