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NEW YORK (AP) — New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio portrayed himself as a man of the people in last year's election. On Saturday, he became a pirate among mermaids.

De Blasio showed up for Saturday's zany Coney Island Mermaid Parade wearing a puffy pirate shirt and brandishing a fake sword. Organizers say he's the first mayor to come in costume.

De Blasio's wife, Chirlane McCray, and their daughter, Chiara (kee-AHR'-uh) de Blasio, chose blue and gold mermaid dresses.

De Blasio's son, Dante, was bare-chested and painted blue.

Dante and Chiara were chosen King Neptune and Queen Mermaid of the parade.

The teens were wheeled in a 1923 wicker rolling chair along the parade route.

The event draws hundreds of thousands of revelers to the beach each year. Many wear revealing, mermaid-themed costumes.

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — A Democratic candidate who reluctantly came out of the closet last year found himself serving as the grand marshal of Maine's biggest gay pride parade and festival Saturday and urged activists to continue fighting to eliminate discrimination and promote equality.

Mike Michaud, who would become the nation's first openly gay person to be elected governor if he unseats Republican Paul LePage in November, said it would be powerful for the gay community to have a seat at the table in discussions with governors across the country on equality issues.

"Maine has come a long ways and our nation has come a long ways, but there's still a long way to go," he said in an interview before he marched alongside a white convertible down the roughly milelong route in downtown Portland.

Gay rights activists say the six-term congressman's victory would be a key milestone in their movement toward equality, inspire other gay leaders to pursue public office and send a positive message to the community's youth.

When Michaud came out publicly last year, he said he didn't want to focus on his personal life in the three-person race with independent Eliot Cutler.

But his potentially historic candidacy has caught the eye of national groups like the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund, which has bundled $30,000 to $50,000 for his campaign.

During the parade, which drew thousands, the six-term congressman shook hands and took pictures with supporters who chanted "We like Mike" as he walked in front of the "Loud and Proud" marching band.

He followed motorcyclists wearing rainbow wigs and feather boas and the parade's two other grand marshals — the coordinator at the University of Southern Maine's Center for Sexualities and Gender Diversity and a transgender student who won a discrimination lawsuit after her school refused to let her use the girls' bathroom.

Aside from fundraising, observers say Michaud's sexual orientation will likely have other political importance in one of the first states to approve same-sex marriage at the ballot box in 2012.

It could turn away some deeply conservative and religious voters, but they likely wouldn't have supported the Democrat anyway, said Michael Cuzzi, a former Democratic campaign strategist.

Michaud has come under fire from his political foes for voting against anti-discrimination laws for gays and other pro-equality measures while in the state Legislature. His campaign said his position on the issues has evolved over the years and he's now strongly pro-equality.

That turnaround and his decision to come out could attract progressives who were not fans of his in earlier elections, said Sandy Maisel, political science professor at Colby College.

Michaud is headlining a group of several openly gay candidates around the country this year, including Heather Mizeur, who's seeking the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in Maryland. Meanwhile, three candidates are trying to become the first openly gay Republicans to be elected to Congress: Dan Innis in New Hampshire, Richard Tisei in Massachusetts and Carl DeMaio in California.

If elected, Michaud wouldn't be the first gay governor. New Jersey's Jim McGreevey had already been voted into office when he announced in 2004 that he was gay and admitted to an extramarital affair with a male staffer. He subsequently resigned.

Twenty-nine year-old Amber Hodgkins, who was watching the parade with her dog, said a victory for Michaud could improve Maine's image nationally as an inclusive community and provide a powerful example to young gay people across the country.

"You don't have to choose to be out and have a career," she said. "You can have it all."

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Follow Alanna Durkin on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/aedurkin

DETROIT (AP) — The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) on Friday became the most prominent religious group in the United States to endorse divestment as a protest against Israeli policies toward Palestinians, voting to sell church stock in three companies whose products Israel uses in the occupied territories.

The General Assembly voted by a razor-thin margin — 310-303 — to sell stock in Caterpillar, Hewlett-Packard and Motorola Solutions. Two years ago, the General Assembly rejected a similar divestment proposal by two votes.

The American Jewish Committee, a policy and advocacy group based in New York, said the vote was "driven by hatred of Israel." But Heath Rada, moderator for the church meeting, said immediately after the vote that "in no way is this a reflection of our lack of love for our Jewish brothers and sisters."

The decision is expected to reverberate beyond the 1.8 million-member church. It comes amid discouragement over failed peace talks that have left activists desperate for some way to affect change and as the broader movement known as BDS — or boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel — has gained some momentum in the U.S., Israel's closest and most important ally.

Presbyterians who advocated for divestment insisted their action was not part of the broader boycott movement. Israeli officials, along with many American Jewish groups, denounced the campaign as an attempt to delegitimize the Jewish state. Separately, the assembly also voted to re-examine its support for a two-state solution.

In a statement on its Facebook page, the Israeli Embassy in Washington denounced the resolution as "shameful."

"Voting for symbolic measures marginalizes and removes its ability to be a constructive partner to promote peace in the Middle East," the statement said.

Omar Barghouti, a co-founder of the BDS movement, praised the vote as a "sweet victory for human rights."

He said Presbyterian supporters of Palestinian rights have introduced divestment into the U.S. mainstream and have given Palestinians "real hope in the face of the relentless and intensifying cruelty of Israel's regime of occupation, settler colonialism and apartheid."

The top Presbyterian legislative body has been considering divestment for a decade. Representatives of the Presbyterian socially responsible investment arm told the national meeting in Detroit that their efforts to lobby the three companies for change had failed. Carol Hylkema of the Israel/Palestine Mission Network, a Presbyterian group that advocates for Palestinians and spearheaded the drive for divestment, said their action was modeled on the divestment movement to end apartheid in South Africa. The 2012 assembly had endorsed a boycott of Israeli products made in the Palestinian territories.

"Because we are a historical peacemaking church, what we have done is, we have stood up for nonviolent means of resistance to oppression and we have sent a clear message to a struggling society that we support their efforts to resist in a nonviolent way the oppression being thrust upon them," said the Rev. Jeffrey DeYoe, of the Israel/Palestine Mission Network.

The vote was the subject of intense lobbying both from within and outside the church. Rabbis and other members of Jewish Voice for Peace, which advocates for Palestinians, lined the halls of the meeting and prayed in vigils outside the convention center wearing T-shirts that read, "Another Jew Supporting Divestment." Other rabbis and their Presbyterian supporters held panel discussions and sent letters to delegates urging them to vote no.

Rabbi Rick Jacobs, head of the liberal Union for Reform Judaism, which is the largest branch of American Judaism, addressed the delegates twice, urging them to reject divestment. After the vote, Jacobs said the denomination as a whole is no longer "a partner for joint work on Israel-Palestine peace issues."

In leading an effort to strike down the proposal, Frank Allen of the Central Florida Presbytery told delegates, "Divestment will create dissension. Dialogue and relationship building will lay the groundwork for true peace."

Bill Ward of the Presbytery of the Inland Northwest, based in Spokane, Washington, argued the proposal was not an attack on Israel. The measure adopted Friday reaffirms Israel's right to exist. "It is motivated by stewardship integrity, not partisan political advocacy," Ward said.

Two smaller U.S. religious groups have divested in protest of Israeli policies: the Friends Fiduciary Corp., which manages assets for U.S. Quakers, and the Mennonite Central Committee. Last week, the pension board of the United Methodist Church, the largest mainline Protestant group in the U.S., revealed plans to sell holdings worth about $110,000 in G4S, which provides security equipment and has contracts with Israel's prison system. However, the United Methodist Church had rejected church-wide divestment.

Motorola Solutions said in a statement that the company follows the law and its own policies that address human rights. Hewlett-Packard said its checkpoints for Palestinians were developed to expedite passage "in a secure environment, enabling people to get to their place of work or to carry out their business in a faster and safer way." Caterpillar has said it does not sell equipment to Israel, just to the U.S. government.

A church spokeswoman estimated the value of Presbyterian holdings in the companies at $21 million.

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Zoll reported from New York.

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