(no subject)
May. 12th, 2007 08:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
felis_ultharusPride Montreal
In case you haven't heard, Montreal's local pride parade, Divers/Cité, has been cancelled this year. This comes after years of strange experiments, like holding the parade at night (which pleased no one), everyone is wondering what the Divers/Cité committee is thinking.
In 1994, the city of Victoria organized a pride parade. It was a simple march with no floats, few banners -- just people marching, with a few in drag. Only 500 people marched, and I was there.
What Victoria could manage in 1994, Montreal can't seem to in 2007. I say we just take out a city permit and go for a no-frills march here like we did in 1994 in Victoria.
Naturally, with the news, the usual people are already coming out of the woodwork asking why a parade like this is necessary.
Sadly, it is. People living in Montreal tend to imagine that all problems have been solved, but that has more to do with our complacency living in an easygoing environment than the reality of the world around us.
For instance, until it was killed under André Boisclair's watch, the Montreal anti-violence program Dire Enfin la Violence was receiving one call about anti-gay violence a week. This in the safest big city in North America, and one of the most gay-positive.
It's been illegal to discriminate against us in the job market in this province since the 1970s, but it still happens. There's still homophobic bullying in schools.
Worst of all, there's an anti-gay backlash coming. Tristan Emmanuel, who's involved with the Conservative Party, has been trying to get anti-gay evangelicals quietly elected to be Conservative candidates in each riding association.
The goal is that if Harper wins a majority, Emmanuel's Trojan-Horse candidates will then push their fundamentalist Christian agenda. Meanwhile, Harper keeps them quiet, and most of them present themselves as just getting involved with politics to fight the corruption of the Liberal party.
This is clearly going on with Harper's knowledge and consent. Harper and Emmanuel are on friendly terms. They were both speakers at the last big anti-same-sex marriage rallies, and Stockwell Day attended Emmanuel's pro-Iraq-War rally, "Canadians for Bush."
One of Emmanuel's candidates, Darrel Reid ran Focus on the Family Canada, and for the Conservatives in 2006. Unlike most of Emmanuel's brood, he couldn't keep his mouth shut, and complained loudly that he was being "muzzled" by Harper, who didn't want him to talk about his anti-gay and anti-abortion views.
Harper clearly didn't hate Reid too much. Reid got a job in his cabinet as Rona Ambrose's right-hand man in the Environment Ministry (a great job for a man who believes the world was created 6000 years ago and that it must end in a fiery apocalypse).
For all these reasons, a demonstration that we are not afraid and will not be cowed is more necessary than ever.
In case you haven't heard, Montreal's local pride parade, Divers/Cité, has been cancelled this year. This comes after years of strange experiments, like holding the parade at night (which pleased no one), everyone is wondering what the Divers/Cité committee is thinking.
In 1994, the city of Victoria organized a pride parade. It was a simple march with no floats, few banners -- just people marching, with a few in drag. Only 500 people marched, and I was there.
What Victoria could manage in 1994, Montreal can't seem to in 2007. I say we just take out a city permit and go for a no-frills march here like we did in 1994 in Victoria.
Naturally, with the news, the usual people are already coming out of the woodwork asking why a parade like this is necessary.
Sadly, it is. People living in Montreal tend to imagine that all problems have been solved, but that has more to do with our complacency living in an easygoing environment than the reality of the world around us.
For instance, until it was killed under André Boisclair's watch, the Montreal anti-violence program Dire Enfin la Violence was receiving one call about anti-gay violence a week. This in the safest big city in North America, and one of the most gay-positive.
It's been illegal to discriminate against us in the job market in this province since the 1970s, but it still happens. There's still homophobic bullying in schools.
Worst of all, there's an anti-gay backlash coming. Tristan Emmanuel, who's involved with the Conservative Party, has been trying to get anti-gay evangelicals quietly elected to be Conservative candidates in each riding association.
The goal is that if Harper wins a majority, Emmanuel's Trojan-Horse candidates will then push their fundamentalist Christian agenda. Meanwhile, Harper keeps them quiet, and most of them present themselves as just getting involved with politics to fight the corruption of the Liberal party.
This is clearly going on with Harper's knowledge and consent. Harper and Emmanuel are on friendly terms. They were both speakers at the last big anti-same-sex marriage rallies, and Stockwell Day attended Emmanuel's pro-Iraq-War rally, "Canadians for Bush."
One of Emmanuel's candidates, Darrel Reid ran Focus on the Family Canada, and for the Conservatives in 2006. Unlike most of Emmanuel's brood, he couldn't keep his mouth shut, and complained loudly that he was being "muzzled" by Harper, who didn't want him to talk about his anti-gay and anti-abortion views.
Harper clearly didn't hate Reid too much. Reid got a job in his cabinet as Rona Ambrose's right-hand man in the Environment Ministry (a great job for a man who believes the world was created 6000 years ago and that it must end in a fiery apocalypse).
For all these reasons, a demonstration that we are not afraid and will not be cowed is more necessary than ever.
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(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-12 01:03 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-12 03:34 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-13 02:28 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-13 12:56 pm (UTC)It wouldn't be so bad. It'd be nice to get the magacorporations out of the parade, and give some space to ordinary people and poorer groups, who tend to get left out.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-13 03:10 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-13 12:58 pm (UTC)It's possible (I'm hoping) that what they're doing is "floating a balloon," as they say in politics. That's where they leak something they're thinking about, then confirm or deny it based on the reaction.
I'm hoping we can get something together if Divers/Cité drops the ball this year.