Barbara Kay in “Support Pride Or You're A Homophobe” (see: http://network.nationalpost.com/NP/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2010/05/10/barbara-kay-support-pride-or-you-re-a-homophobe.aspx#ixzz0oxlz85AF) seems to have gone off a little half-cocked.
It isn’t that I disagree with Kay’s contention that it’s a mistake for Pride to allow (or perhaps more accurately, not prevent) Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (QAIA)’s marching and spewing, the very fact of their word “Apartheid” here inaccurate and enraging.
But Pride is supposed to be about equality for and among the LGBTQQ (LMNOP, as I like to say tongue-in-cheek. Let’s face it, at my age it’s hard to remember any abbreviated series) community, and the parade has no business sanctioning anyone’s hatred toward or rage against anyone. The entire purpose of the parade, in fact, is to speak to a feeling and substance of inclusion, and in so doing highlight what is entirely unacceptable about exclusion in any form, which includes QAIA’s sweeping hatred toward Israelis.
And it isn’t that I haven’t developed my own strongly personal feelings about the Middle East situation, but Pride is not the place to air my views.
No. The problem I have with Kay and her article is her simplistic toss-off: “Who should the MFEP fund, if anyone? If Ottawa is to persist in the questionable practice of using tax money to choose winners and losers among the thousands of arts events on offer, it should focus on those that appeal to interests in which all Canadians feel welcome and engaged. The Montreal Jazz Festival and the Montreal Just for Laughs Festival will receive $3 million each this year, as they have in past years. They create massive tourism, they are unpoliticized and they unify their populations in positive, peaceful ways. The federal government should fund arts, sports and culture, not ‘queer arts,’ ‘Jewish sports,’ ‘black music,’ or ‘Ukrainian pride’ is reprehensible.”
What is she talking about – winners and losers? What does she mean – reprehensible? And how is Toronto’s Pride not positive; not peaceful? Can she not make out the difference between a world where two gay Milawi men, for example – Tiwonge Chimbalanga, 33, and Steven Monjeza, 26 – face up to 14 years in prison for holding an engagement party?! How does this compare with the Montreal Jazz Festival or Just For Laughs? Or does Kay not understand the corollary between Toronto Pride and its representation of freedom for people all over the world?
Rather than cast her own banal aspersions, Barbara Kay might (and I only say might because I question her intellectual flexibility) find herself better served spending ninety minutes watching Bob Christie’s documentary – Beyond Pride: The Politics of Gay – of what it means to hold Pride in places like Moscow and Warsaw and Sri Lanka, where oppressive regimes dictate what, and who, qualifies as viable candidates for human – and humanity’s – survival.
The Victoria Times Colonist writes:
“Christie’s colourful overview is also a harsh and disturbing reminder, however, of ongoing, mind-boggling intolerance in places where homophobia is rampant (Jamaica is the world capital, according to Time). It’s shocking to learn, for instance, that archaic British colonial sodomy laws are still in place in Sri Lanka, where ‘curative rape’ is sanctioned as a ‘cure’ for lesbianism; that homosexuality carries stiff prison terms in some countries; and to witness protesters pelting Pride participants with eggs and tomatoes in Budapest, where gay clubs are firebombed. The most fascinating of the sequences — linked by graphics of a a ‘Freedometer’ charts each location’s tolerance levels — focus on gay rights activists risking their lives for the cause.”
See: http://biggaymovie.com/raves-reviews/
As if the commentary supporting Kay’s assertions isn’t enough to prove how desperately Pride is needed:
Mike Murphy writes:
An update on the Red Stars poll
Do you think the federal government should fund Toronto's gay pride festival?
Yes (30%)
No (67%)
Not sure (3%)
Total Votes: 21282
The wankers over there must be having convulsions one of their pet groups is taking it in the chin - or is that on the buttocks. Will we see an editorial later about the new wave of homophobia afoot in the land?
Johnny Quest writes:
Look, this is how the game goes.
Rick Mercer and the Canadian taxpayer subsidized 'entertainment press' will blow a gasket and funds will be diverted to lobbying and ridiculing the government on homophobia instead of actually entertaining.
It happened during the same-sex marriage 'debate' and it will happen again.
Sadly, nobody else in the media has the cohones to admit that the taxpayer subsidized system has been hijacked by gay activists.
Disagree with Mercer and not show your bare ass on National teevee, and you are a homophobe.
Jeff Foxworthy should do a ‘you know you are a homophobe routine.’
It would be immediately hauled before a Human Rights Commission.
Gays activists are the new thought police. Truth is no defence.
Whittih writes:
I'm a homophobe and damn proud of it. There is no way that tax money should be spent on this atrocious spectacle of freaks and geeks parading downtown. They have already forced us to change the definition of the word ‘gay’. They are still homosexuals and lesbians and they are not permitted to sully my home with their presence.
Sassylassie writes:
Good analogy bob, I like the skit with the shurbery now that was funny. Homophobe, Islamophobe gawd I'm sick of the shakedown artists hurling names at anyone who doesn't duck march to their agenda.
Nice summation Mrs. Kay.
Taxibill writes:
faggots are useless.
[end quotes]
There will always be Jerry Springer Show idiots in the world. What frightens me more (because Jerry Springer Show idiots cause infinite despair) are the number of articulate, well-educated people who haven’t the quantum-leap intelligence to look past their noses and see how damaging – how dangerous – their pompous, ridiculously narrow-minded journalistic judgements, their smug declarations, are – and how, rather than help in exponential ways, they reductively situate themselves among the lowest common denominator, setting all of us back dozens of years.
