In just a few hours I'll be following the rainbow, or waving it, at the Toronto Pride parade.
Along with about a million gay people and their straight friends and supporters.
It's always an awesome spectacle. A chance to celebrate our community, our survival, and in my case at least, send a giant F**K YOU to every bigot in the world.
Because that's what the rainbow flag means to me. FREEDOM.
Freedom for all the oppressed people of the earth, freedom from ignorance and bigotry, patriarchy and poverty. Freedom to imagine a kinder, gentler world.
And of course in Canada, freedom from Stephen Harper, whose stealth war against gay Canadians continues without end...
He has voted against every single bill ever introduced to protect LGBT people from discrimination and hate crimes. He has just passed a pro-hate speech bill.
He has cut all funding for gay groups. The Pride celebrations get nothing, while the Calgary Stampede gets millions, and so do anti-gay religious groups.
He has done nothing to fight homophobia, or anti-gay bullying. And even though Exodus International, a group that claimed it could "cure" gay people, recently gave up the ghost.
He still allows its umbrella organization to operate in Canada as a registered charity.
Even though thousands of Canadians have signed petitions demanding that its status be revoked.
Because like those shameless quacks he too believes that gays can be cured...
Nobody in the MSM has ever challenged his kooky views.
And he remains what he always has been, a disgusting anti-gay bigot...
And the good news? As in so many other things history is passing him by. His creepy anti-gay views only make him look even more like a relic from a dark and shameful past. A grubby little man whose time is OVER.
And his stealthy war on gay Canadians has only made him more enemies, the kind that NEVER surrender no matter how much hate they throw at them...
People like ME.
Yup. I think I shall ride through the crowd today on Sébastien's shoulders, with my supersoaker strapped to my back as if I am riding to war.
And when I see the big rainbow flag I shall shout Freedom!!! Freedom!!! Freedom!!!
The Day of Liberation is coming !!!!
Monster cure YOURSELF...
And since it will take me at least a day to recover from that eh?
I'll leave you with this little video that YouTube put together of the struggle that never ends.
Fighting for ALL of us, showing our pride, sharing our LOVE...
From the people of the rainbow to all their straight friends.
Thank you for joining us on our march to FREEDOM.
Happy Pride Day everybody !!!!
Click here to recommend this post at Progressive Bloggers.
21 comments:
Happy Pride Simon, and thanks for reminding us that the uber control freak at the helm in our beautiful country is also an extreme anti-gay bigot. As with everything else about this man, he hides this well too, but make no mistake, he comes from the world that leviticus applies only to us.
Simon, Happy Pride Day! Happy Canada Day!
Cathy
Harper really is a piece of shit. He is pure scum. What does that say about his supporters?
Simon, during this week-end of celebration and Pride, my hope is that some good blogging soul would do a piece on our homeless in Canada. For background, here in Ontario, when Harris, Flaherty, Baird and Clement were running our province into the ditch and cutting our most vulnerable off at the knees, creating the Walkerton and Dudley George tragedies, Flaherty's brilliant idea was to LOCK our homeless people up...but, I ask, isn't it cheaper and more HUMANE to HOUSE them?? Finance minister--my arse. It reminds me of Harper's economic prowess. Cold-blooded Cons--the lot of them. And their blind supporters too. Have a great time celebrating how far we've come, and please remember how far we still have to go...
What does Calgary's LGBT community do during Stampede?
Nice video. We need some from up here. Yes, stealth steve is hiding his bigotry, and many equally abominable prejudices.
You know of course that Adrienne Mofatt, one of our most talented young singer - songwriter - musicians, is out and proud, and her girlfriend (compagne) is about to give birth to their twins.
By the way, our "DiversCité" is a bit later in the summer, to avoid the flag wars!
hi bcwaterboy...Happy Pride to you too !!! And yes, I thought I should use the occasion to remind people of Harper's anti-gay record. It frustrates me to see how that ghastly Con is getting away with murder, while some people still debate whether he's a right-wing extremist. But as you point out he hides it well, like so many other things. However, as I said in the post, it only makes him look cheaper and smaller, if that's possible, and it will cost him in the end...
hi Cathy...Thank you and the same to you !!! The parade was absolutely amazing, and I've never seen so many people in my life. The most wonderful celebration of diversity and love you could ever imagine. I hope you are having a fabulous holiday. Isn't summer GREAT? :)
hi anonymous...history will be very hard on Harper, and it will not spare his supporters. For they enabled this horror show. The good news is that according to the latest Nanos poll quite a few of them are now claiming that they won't vote for him again. Better late than never...
hi Linda...as you may know, I am extremely concerned about the plight of the homeless. I have worked with them before and will again, and am particularly concerned with finding better ways to deal with their health needs. As well of course with getting them a place to call home.It shocks me that in a country as rich as this one so many people don't have a proper roof over their heads. I promise I will write about the problem in the future. But with all the excitement of this weekend I'm too beat to write anything...;)
hi anonymous... I don't know, but since there are quite a few gay cowboys I hardly dare ask... ;)
hi lagatta...yes we do need to make more good videos up here. We have the talent, but for some reason there are very few good political ones. I can and should do better myself, but I just don't have the time to make videos and blog. I enjoy making them immensely, but if you're going to do a good job it's awafully time consuming. Oh well, hopefully I can make a few this summer. As for DiversCité I'm hoping to be there this year. One Pride parade is good, but two is even better... :)
This is typical rhetoric from the extreme left. It's simply another example of radical activists attempting to smear anyone who does not hold to their "ethic" of sexual relativism. That unless one approves of everything that radicals due, they are to be portrayed as hateful, or bigoted, or whatever the label du jour happens to be. This is the fascist strain in radical leftism that wishes to deem all who do not tow the line as socially unmutual & a dangerous menace that must be stopped at the risk of freedom & rights, which are simply equated with desires. Marxists have always attempted to do away with those who do not share their vision, as worthless obstacles to an inevitable utopia where everyone will get everything they want from government one day without interference from people with actual standards. I don't think people who hold to sexual radicalism & polymorphous perversity are morally qualified to make value judgments against anyone else who doesn't raise sexual pleasure of any kind as the highest social goal.
That was one of the more bizarre homophobic comments you've let pass, Simon.
Actually, the "fascist", or more properly Stalinist strain in radical leftism has always been virulently homophobic, denouncing lgbt people as a bourgeois deviation.
As for "polymorphous perversity", that concept (about the development of human sexuality) has its roots in Freudian, and not Marxist thought. While we certainly wouldn't accept Sigmund's antiquated ideas about either women or gay people, in his day he was a fearless, and materialist explorer of sexuality and other aspects of the human psyche.
This creep doesn't set forth what his social goals are, but I highly suspect they involve persecuting lgbt people, a single model of heteroesexual, child-producing marriage (called "monogamous", but men always had the right to stray), and mandatory child production for women of menstrual age. It is amusing that he refers to more fun-loving people, be they gay, bisexual, straight or something else - as "fascists"!
And somehow I suspect he is interested in such social goals as universal free public transport, carfree cities, or kindness and protection for all living creatures....
"actual standards"?? HAHAHA!
hi Sage Anthony...I'm not sure what you mean by "sexual relativism." I sounds like something right-wing religious fanatics use to persecute all those who disagree with the stone inscriptions of hairy desert dwellers who lived thousands of years ago and didn't know what they were talking about then. Just like the followers don't know what they're babbling about today. I really don't care what religious cult members have to say about ANYTHING. They are free to believe in anything as far as I'm concerned. What I do strongly object to is theocrats telling the rest of us what to do, or groping our love lives. And FYI both marxists and fascists have tended to treat "sexual radicals" the same way. Because like misogyny, homophobia is just a form of social control. Come on Anthony save the sage for the turkey...
hi lagatta...Since I frequently publish comments with my mobile I don't get to reply to them right away. My fingers are too big...ahem...to type a proper response on my phone. But yeah I did reply to Anthony, what you say is true, and as I keep telling them their war on love is doomed to fail. As well of course as being their own worse punishment...
hi Linda...yes I too thought that was hilarious. I was going to include it in my reply to him, but then I thought it might take too much time away from my "sexual relativism." Or what you and I call LOVE and FUN... :)
Judith Timson had a good, if deadly serious, comment piece on why we have to celebrate and commemorate the fight for lgbt rights (I'm not gay by the way: when I say WE, I mean that it is a human rights cause to be defended by all democrats, although of course it must be led by LGBTQ people, along the same lines as feminist struggle). Reminder of what the pink triangle means, and sadly, how Liberation was a relief and a lifesaver, but not really an end to homophobic persecution: http://www.thestar.com/life/2013/06/27/gay_men_stigmatized_and_worked_to_death_by_nazis.html
We remember that the "sexual relativist" community that so fuelled creativity and FUN in Weimar Berlin was also exterminated, as were the Jewish and Roma communities, and everything even vaguely on the left or anti-authoritarian.
And LGBTQ parades are indeed so much more fun, and far more peaceful, than your average hockey riot, that time-honoured celebration of young male macho heterosexuality and excess imbibing. Or the older-generation versions in political, business or military establishments...
Your misinformed ...gay marriage is flourishing under a Harper government.
God Bless Harper!!!
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