City
Will Rob Ford attend Pride this year?
It's that time of year again — when we collectively wait to see whether or not Rob Ford will participate in Toronto's annual Pride festivities. The Toronto Star reports that an official invitation has been dispatched by Pride Toronto for 2012, which will put the matter of Ford's attendance back on the municipal affairs radar.
That his prospective attendance remains dubious continues to strike me as ludicrous — it should be a given that the Mayor of Toronto participates and endorses an event of this magnitude — but based on his steadfast refusal to participate last year, it's legitimate to wonder if he'll have a change of heart this time around.
My hunch is that Ford will do something Pride-related this year — even if he doesn't make the main event. Although the mayor can be as bull-headed a politician as I've ever followed, I suspect that the widespread disappointment from last year and the pressure that's sure to come this year, will ultimately sway him. After all, the "I-have-a-very-busy-schedule-excuse" isn't likely to mollify anyone this time around, if it ever did.
Forgetting the real reason that Ford should be there (i.e. to support Toronto's gay community), it also makes sense for purely political reasons. If city council's voting record over the last half-year or so has taught us anything, it's that the city has grown tired of the mayor's stubbornness. As such, Ford's support of Pride would be symbolic in more ways than one.
Will Rob Ford take the opportunity to live up to his putative position as leader of this city and attend one of its most important events in 2012? Place your bets.
Photo by BruceK in the blogTO Flickr pool
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Simply put, it's outright embarrassing for the mayor of this city not to participate.
Small concessions make big differences.
I don't doubt the current Mayor McCheese would be heckled and hollered at if he decides to attend or even march, but it would be tiny olive branch extended to a community he's made a point of offending. I think we'd all be the better for it.
All that is to say is that I doubt the past year will have any impact on whether he attends Pride events or not. The fact is, Pride events make him uncomfortable, for whatever reason, and he's not mature enough to realize that as Mayor, its important for him to attend events such as Pride or the many other cultural events that take place in the City, whether he's comfortable or not.
In his mind "Ford Nation" doesn't care if he goes or not, and "Ford Nation" is the only opinion he cares about. As Mayor he needs to demonstrate that he represents everyone in the City, not just folks he likes, and he hasn't yet figured that out.
I'd love to be wrong about this, but nothing in his behaviour so far, suggests that I will be.
I know, let's hold all the Pride festivities up at RoFo's cottage this year! That way everyone wins!
He doesn't want to go, and they dont want him there anyways.
Seems pretty amicable to me.
I don't care either way, but if the gays can be proud about being gay, why can't ROFO be proud about not wanting to attend their party? I'd be more upset if I was gay and he DID come to pride. Everyone knows if he shows it's because he is being forced to be there.
It's not hard to go to one event. The gays are a warm people. They'll welcome him and clap for him.
Perhaps Ford reacts on gut instinct, but his handlers are a bit more astute. As he himself has admitted, he's already campaigning and that means preening to the people that will actually vote for him. Staying home panders to them.
Pity the city is being governed based on an election almost 3 years away, but that's the reality these days.
The Mayor of Toronto, regardless of who he or she is or where he or she stands politically, needs to attend an event of this magnitude. For the amount of money generated in revenue for this city and the number of tourists, many of them first time visitors, that it attracts, it just looks so awful on the city for its mayor to be invisible.
but having said that, I wonder if he'll pay special attention to the Bathouse article and maybe stop in there as part of the parade. It's a nice family thing that I'm sure he wants to be associated with, and was pointed out time and time again in the comments yesterday.. it's 'gay culture', whatever that it.
Ford does not have to support it as a Mayor, and I will vote for him again if he does not. I don't quite agree with harshness of Sinners comments, but he is right in general. It is hard to explain a 6 year old why bunch of naked man run around in public. I respect choice of gay people, but their lifestyle should in no way influence the rest of the community, specially little kids who are just too young to see and understand some things.
If you didn't vote for him, you are "the enemy". He's unwavering on that. He doesn't want to make new friends and gain new supporters, he only cares about those who voted him in in the first place.
Rob Ford has a choice. I would encourage him and others like him to come to Pride and meet people who may want to be mayor one day too, queer or straight.
Go ahead and google search away, but I did a little checking and I'm pretty sure that every other active big-city mayor on the continent has gone to some sort of pride event at some point in their term. The only one I could definitively find who did not was Oklahoma City's mayor, and for a number of reasons that one doesn't count.
There is simply no way for anyone to make a case for the Mayor not doing something for Pride.
Now, do I think he will go to the parade? No way. But I'm sure he will do some lower-key event. The few allies he has left are applying pressure, and even the Sun will leave him if he doesn't get his act together this year. Ford is a dimwitted, stubborn and probably homophobic man but even he can't be so dumb as to try to pull a disappearing act two years in a row.
Some are expressing the idea "By not being there he simply becomes an institutionalized form of intolerance." This categorical assertion is the same as GWBush / Vic Toews "You're either with us or you're with the enemy / child pornographers". Generally deemed ridiculous, causing much uproar over the whole sale slandering and denial of nuanced positions.
Generally I agree that with an event as large as pride week is in Toronto the mayor should participate. But it's a very tough, specious argument to slander and convict him if his family tradition thingy is accurate. The sanctity of the family is not to be trivialized regardless of the stripe of that family.
But whatever. Pride is a huge public event. One of the biggest (if not THE biggest) annual event that we have. Rob Ford is not doing his job as mayor of this city if he again refuses to participate in one single event related to Pride.
He CHOSE to run for public office and to accept all of the benefits and sacrifices that go along with being the mayor of the largest city in Canada. I'm sorry (actually, I'm not) but that means he has to give up some of his personal cottage time and devote himself unreservedly to the people of this city. We pay him. He needs to show up and DO HIS JOB.
i know many people who usually vote liberal but refused to vote for smitherman because he was gay and could never support him.
Yes. He was in the 2011 parade throwing out candy.
Ford seems very selective about which part of his job he's willing to do, and which Torontonians he'll support.
IMHO... as a gay man - I could care less who shows up to the parade from government. It's a corporate sponsored event now. Pride is much ado about nothing these days except a big neighborhood party. Leave the politics out of it. It's the gay Caribbana without the guns.
If RoFo has any sort of political smarts (...dun dun dun) he will show up this year with any family members that are game and march with a group like PFLAG simply as a show of support.
...ah who am I kidding. Break out the Rob Ford masks again.
So what's the point of even asking? You guys will criticize him no matter what he does.
I don't really get why he even bothered running for Mayor as he really doesn't seem to like Toronto very much. At this point, the Pride organizers are just winding him up as he made his stance pretty clear last year. Besides, why would they even want someone there who is so clearly uncomfortable?
Rob Ford is a disgrace, but I would prefer it if we could just not have this become an annual screaming match. He's not going, and even if he did, it wouldn't be for the right reasons. Let's just hope that whoever wins the 2014 election, regardless of their political affiliation, will be able to make time for one of the city's largest and most lucrative cultural events.
18 months ago, I would have laughed if someone had told me that the next Mayor would make me miss Mel "Badboy" Lastman.
If he goes, I won't! It's supposed to be Pride, why should we invite the man that brings shame on our city?
there are no gay people in ford nation, we are 100% gay free, just ask dougie.
This, in my mind, makes his non-appearance all the more ridiculous - the fact that he's just a useless, stubborn, bullheaded idiot that he can't even play the role of a politician. Toronto should throw this disgrace out of office.
Ford should be free do to whatever he wants in his spare time, without this tiny minority group of self-absorbed narcissists spitting poison at him in the name of tolerance.
http://www.torontosun.com/2012/04/19/ford-should-attend-pride-event
"Don’t let your own pride and intransigence get in the way of doing what’s right."