City
Proud of Toronto Campaign descends on City Hall
In anticipation of International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia and a May 24th City Council meeting at which the fate of funding for Pride Toronto will hang in the balance, a few hundred people rallied at City Hall in the hopes that the long-running event won't be put on the chopping block. Named the Proud of Toronto Rally, those gathered also expressed concern regarding sustained support of other services like the 519 Community Centre and the AIDS Committee of Toronto.
Mayor Ford and a number of other councillors were (unsurprisingly) no-shows, including Giorgio Mammoliti, who spearheaded the motion to cut funding to the parade when the group Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (QuAIA) were allowed to participate in the 2010 parade. Although QuAIAh has indicated that it will not participate this year, Mammoliti wants a letter of guarantee to this effect, the necessity of which will be debated on the 24th.
Councillors who were in attendance included Kristyn Wong-Tam, Gord Perks, Shelley Carroll, Adam Vaughan, Josh Matlow, Ana Bailão, Paula Fletcher, Mike Layton, Sarah Doucette, Joe Mihevc, and others that we apparently didn't spot. At stake is $123,807 and around $300,000 in services like policing and cleanup, funding that Co-Chair Francisco Alvarez says could bankrupt Pride Toronto.
PHOTOS
Councillor Ward 27 Kristyn Wong-Tam delivering a speech
Jade Elektra performing
Francisco Alvarez, Co-Chair of Pride Toronto
Doug Kerr (an organizers of the Proud of Toronto campaign)
Founders of Gay-Straight Alliance from St. Joseph's Catholic Secondary School
Video booth where people recorded their thoughts on the importance of LGBT programs and Pride
Group Shots
Photos by Tony Chen
Discussion
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That new name sounds good.
Pride didn't want QUAIA at last year's parade, even banning them until community support changed their minds, you may recall.
Well, that or overweight transvestites :)
Seriously though, live and let live.
No mention of the months of effort by Pride to find a solution to this challenge without fracturing the community? No mention of the dispute resolution mechanism that's resulted from extensive consultations?
No mention of the mayor's many anti-LGBT comments in the past, or of his failure to ever show up at a single event organized by the LGBT community?
Simply showing up at this event or at today's flag raising would have been the easiest way possible for Ford and Mammoliti to counter the well-founded accusations homophobia against them. But no, these buffoons wear their homophobia like a badge of honour.
I could care less about the mayors views. Pride brought this shitstorm onto themselves, it would be native to think they didn't earn a black mark with the city.
Toronto Pride isn't about exclusion, nor are they a jewish organization, if the isrealites want to fight palestinians, do it in palestine, or gaza or w/e, don't use organizations liek PRIDE to further the isreali agenda. TBH, i don't give a shit about either side, so long as they keep their bs confined to the conflict zone they BOTH created and out of Canada.
So why should the QuAIA not march? Are the rights of Palestinian civilians not worth as much as yours or mine? Are their lives cheaper? I understand that groups like Hamas have radicalized some of them and that stirs hatred, but the Isreali government shares just as much blame in this case. So why are we siding with them? I side with people, especially innocent people caught in the middle and that means Isrealites and Palestinians. PRIDE stands for inclusiveness, equality of rights and tolerance, excluding a group that wants to bring to light the great atrocities perpetrated against their population for no real reason other than racial differences and a strip of land is not a reflection of those values. I think QuAIA, on the other hand, could do themselves a world of good by eliminating the Apartheid portion of their name (not because what they're subject to isn't apartheid-like, but because it stirs the pot against them) and marching in this year's Pride.
However, Pride's funding isn't about Isreali-Palestinian relations, it's about the homophobia that our mayor blatantly shows and his disdain for the LGBT community. If you believe otherwise, you're lying to yourself.
It's true that Pride announced they would not allow QuAIA to march in the parade, and then reversed that decision later on. But the community reaction was so severe that they really had no choice. Their last-minute compromise was to require all participants to sign an agreement not to violate the city's anti-discrimination policy. And it was a reasonable compromise, as it was that policy that was the subject of council's concern last year (oh, how those goal-posts move). There was considerable question as to whether "Queers Against Israeli Apartheid" actually violates that policy. If it doesn't, how could Pride hope to justify to the community the group's exclusion?
The City Manager's report is significant because it demonstrates that, in the end, Pride was correct: QuAIA's participation did not constitute a violation of the city's anti-discrimination policy.
Ford and Mammoliti's homophobia is relevant because it explains the whole thing: They were trying to put Pride into an impossible situation, and that effort continues today. Even knowing that QuAIA will not be participating this year, they're still looking to make demands that they know Pride cannot satisfy. It's transparent, it's ridiculous, and it's offensive.