"Queers Against Israeli Apartheid" Fucks Gay Pride...
Sorry, I just couldn't help myself...but Queers Against Israeli Apartheid have ruined Gay Pride....for the forseeable future...
This week, Pride Toronto executive director Tracey Sandilands sent the following email to her staff:The chickens come home to roost. Nice to see. The last thing I want is to see Gay Pride hurt, but this is so unnecessary! Being a loony lefty was far more important than being gay, so they had to let QAIA into the march, no matter what.“It is becoming clear that we are not in great financial shape at present. We lost a significant amount in expected sponsorships as a result of the political messaging issue, and beverage sales during the festival were down against both 2008 and 2009 figures, while toonie drive also came up short. Due to this situation, we are reviewing all costs and will need to implement severe cuts for the 2011 festival year if we are to survive. As part of this exercise, no temporary contracts will be renewed and the following staff will finish up by end July: TK, Dina, Cristina, Spink and Lina. We have had to let Mary Zondanos and Michael Ain go, and our office admin Coralee will be leaving to go back to school at the end of August. All these positions will remain unfilled until further notice … The next year will be a challenging one under these circumstances, and we will need the support and commitment of all our incredible volunteers to get through it.”What caused this downsizing? The details are in this interview with Xtra!:“We don’t know what our final number is going to be, however we do know that if you look at the expected sponsorships that did not come in as a direct result of the political messaging issue, that was $250,000. And then there were other issues, like the fact that we might not be able to count on city funding next year, and existing sponsors who have given us notice in writing to say that unless we resolve the issues to their satisfaction, they will no longer be sponsoring us next year. So next year looks very bleak at this point.”By “political messaging,” Sandilands is of course referring to the presence in the parade of anti-Israel bigots — led by the single-issue group Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (QuAIA). The red ink should not come as any surprise. Martin Gladstone, among other grass-roots gay activists in Toronto’s gay community, has been warning for months that Pride’s insistence on providing a stage for hatemongers would drive away corporate sponsors and render Pride ineligible for government financial support.
Meanwhile, the activists at QuAIA may wonder what the point is of all this. True, they got to march in this year’s parade. But their presence was something of a flop, given the equal and offsetting number of jubilant pro-Israel paraders. Based on what I saw at the parade, the QuAIA types don’t seem to have convinced anyone that Israel is the demon state they claim: All they’ve done is cost a few Pride employees their jobs, gutted $250,000 from the event’s budget, and perhaps even jeopardized the future of the event itself, as more and more corporations jump ship, and Toronto City Council strips funding.
Nice work, QuAIA — you’re a real credit to the gay community.
Will they learn anything from this? I doubt it.
posted by GayandRight @ 4:18 PM
8 Comments:
There's an old saying that "if you fuck with the bull you'll get the horn". As a corollary I would add, "and if you keep pushing the limits of the public's tolerance you will find out what getting fucked really means."
I contested BMO's support for this event just from the several years of male nudity in front of children when the Police allow it.
The Bank has a BMO-Pride dept. and it's not that every other gender and sexual choice gets one to fund their pet causes. I also pointed out the Bigotted slur made by a BMO employee called Enza Anderson the trans-gender rep at BMO's gay village Bank-Centre,she is on a John Oakley show from last year and asserts that Chritian would perfer that all homosexual were dead if they had their way.
This was on national radio and intenet archives to hear it,if I said the same thing as a Christian while at BMo they would fire me. But Corp.'s lower the bar for minorities.
Lets move the Pride to the CNE grounds for a Adult only paid-venue like the Honda Auto race does and use the lakeshore as carabana does.
Sell beer and ban children from it, be naked all you want and parade any bigots you want , plus sponsors can be seen upfront and make a free-will choice to run ads and not a OHRC forced affirmation via Lawfare and Business jihad to bankrupt a Company by protests and smears.
The Police should also stay out because they used to be ordered to not show a bias in public which the Uniform was designed for when the Catholic/Protestant issue needed the perception of fairness and a Faith-neutral appearance to seem unbias to the public.
Somehow there is now a Pride-rep in the Police when we don't have a heterosexual Santa parade rep. .
Free speech is great,adults make comments or protest in public and then Consumers use the same Wallet-Protests as gays have to punish people they don't agree with.
This is great news! Now if only we could have assurances that all government funding will be removed.
Perhaps the Hamas supporters can use their personal savings or ask the sexuality blind,tolerant Iranian Gov't for a small gift.
That's excellent news, and exactly what I was hoping for. The fact that these idiots were allowed to participate in this parade was disappointing, yes...but common sense has finally prevailed.
Are they really so blind that they can't see what they've done to the credibility of the Pride Parade (and perhaps the gay community in general)?
It's interesting that you call Martin Gladstone a "grassroots gay activist"... when in fact, no one in Toronto's LGBT community has ever heard of him. In fact, the grassroots queer community came out en masse to defend QuAIA and it's right to participate in the Pride parade like every other queer and trans group in this city (that includes eight of the original founders of the parade in 1981 as well as over 20 award recipients).
And in fact, QuAIA marched in 2008 and 2009 without the festival falling apart or anything like it (in fact, most people hardly noticed). Instead what happened this year is that the Israel lobby teamed up with anti-queer bigots like Giorgio Mammoliti to defend the festival... and many of those like Mammoliti wanted to defund it long before they ever heard of QuAIA and probably still have not even bothered to look at their website to see what the group actually says. In fact, Kulanu used to be a much more open organization.. my understanding is that there used to be Jewish critics of Israel in that organization (after all Kulanu means "everyone" in Hebrew), but they have all been compelled to leave now that Kulanu has been co-opted by the Israel lobby to act as a battering ram against QuAIA. And a couple of former Kulanu members even marched with QuAIA at the parade.
So if you want to support the Pride festival, it's easy... kick out the heterosexual cisgender Israel lobby and it's anti-queer friends that want to defund the festival!
It doesn't matter if nobody in the LGBT community has heard of Martin Gladstone....he is still a grass roots activist.
And, he's an activist in the finest sense of the word. He has seen something that is wrong (QAIA) and has fought, on the ground, to turn things around.
He is a hero in my eyes!
Anonymous said...
And in fact, QuAIA marched in 2008 and 2009 without the festival falling apart or anything like it (in fact, most people hardly noticed).
Well, this year they *did* notice...and they didn't like it.
The Pride Committee tried to 'finesse' their way around the issue, but it didn't work. So now you have to ask yourself this: is it really worth endangering the entire Pride Parade just to include this small group of bigots?
The answer is obvious. The parade will go on...QuAIA will not. Sorry if that hurts your feelings, but common sense must prevail here.
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