Onlookers celebrate at a recent Pride Parade in Chicago. | Tom Cruze~Sun-Times

Updated: June 22, 2012 8:23PM

This is no ordinary year for Chicago’s Pride Parade.

Sunday’s 43rd annual parade kicks off on the North Side during a year marked by remarkable advances for gay rights in America.

The biggest moment came in May with President Barack Obama’s unequivocal endorsement of gay marriage.

The president of the United States stood up for what’s right, risking whatever political fallout may come. He stood up for the most basic of American concepts: that all citizens deserve equal treatment.

Obama’s endorsement came in a year when three more states legalized gay marriage, though two face possible voter reversal, and gay-rights supporters scored a major victory against the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which denies gay couples federal benefits such as Social Security survivor payments. For the first time, a federal appellate court, in June, ruled against the