Waving a flag in Laguna for same-sex marriage ruling

As cars whizzed past on South Coast Highway in Laguna Beach, Jay Corona stood on the sidewalk, dutifully waving a striped rainbow flag.

It was the bartender’s day off at Main Street Bar and Cabaret, the beach town’s last gay bar. The 33-year-old bartender had been headed Friday toward the Mammoth area to work this weekend, but he turned around before he even left Orange County. The U.S. Supreme Court, in a landmark 5-4 decision, had ruled Friday morning that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marriage.

He’d remembered a gay-pride flag that flew from a holster on the bar’s outside wall. About 12:30 p.m., he arrived at the otherwise unassuming locale, scrambled up a wall to grab the flag and began to wave it, he said.

“This needed to be done,” he said, still waving two hours later, a celebratory sentry in a largely conservative county.

Armed with a venti Starbucks cup filled with ice water and sunglasses and a cap to protect him from the sun, he relished the honks and shouts of passers-by.

Corona, who identifies as gay, said he hoped the flag would bring a little happiness to those who drove by, but also “remind them that, you know, there’s still people fighting.”