"Last year, the Miami Beach Gay Pride committee conservatively planned for 5,000 attendees and 20,000 showed up. This year, organizers estimate at least 30,000 revelers joined the second annual gay pride festival on Ocean Drive."

CHECK IT OUT: Miami Beach Gay Pride 2010 gallery

Miami Herald's Steve Rothaus reports:

Leading the way as co-grand marshal was 29-year-old U.S. Army Lt. Dan Choi, who last month chained himself to a White House fence to protest the military's “Don't Ask, Don't Tell'' policy. Choi, the son of a Baptist minister, said he spent 10 years as a closeted gay soldier before outing himself in March 2009 on MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Show. Joining him was Emmy- and Golden Globe-winner Sharon Gless of Fisher Island, a lesbian icon for TV's Cagney & Lacey and gay icon for Queer as Folk. They rode in a vintage Rolls Royce along Ocean Drive.

Nimon Sinanovic, from New York for the weekend, said he was happily surprised by gay pride, South Beach style. He and his partner, Andy Robinson, enjoyed the parade but did notice differences from similar ones in New York. “This was very G-rated, unlike the parades in [New York],'' Sinanovic said. It was cute, though. For someone not expecting to find anything like this here, it was quite an eventful time to celebrate and show our pride.'' READ MORE