John Tory: No city funding for Pride if 'Israeli apartheid’ group allowed

The gay Pride festival should be denied city funding if the activist group Queers Against Israeli Apartheid is allowed to participate, mayoral candidate John Tory said at a debate held by a Jewish group on Friday — reigniting a long-running city hall debate that appeared to have finally dissipated.

Pride received a government grant of $160,500 this year. About 50 people marched under the QuAIA banner in the WorldPride parade, a group representative says — out of about 12,000 registered marchers in total.

Kathleen Wynne to be first Ontario premier to march in Toronto gay pride parade

TORONTO - Canada's first openly-gay premier, Ontario's Kathleen Wynne, will march into history later this month when she becomes the first sitting premier to take part in Toronto's annual gay pride parade.

Wynne, who is married to Jane Rounthwaite and has three children and two grandchildren, said attending gay pride activities is an annual event for her.

"Well it's part of summer you know," said told The Canadian Press in an interview.

Mayor Rob Ford will attend Pride flag-raising, says Doug Ford

Mayor Rob Ford will attend the rainbow flag-raising at City Hall that kicks off Toronto’s Pride Week, his brother, Councillor Doug Ford, told a Ryerson University law class Thursday afternoon.

If he does, it would be the first official Pride event the mayor has attended since his election in 2010.

As he did in a surprise appearance last year, the mayor will also go to the flag-raising at City Hall that marks the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia on May 17, Doug Ford said.

Celebrations, demonstrations mark Toronto Pride Parade

They whistled, cheered and turned parts of downtown Toronto into a giant rainbow.

Thousands in colourful clothing streamed into the city’s core on Sunday for Toronto’s 32nd annual Pride Parade.

Many carried both the Canadian flag and the rainbow flag of the gay and lesbian movement, marking Canada Day and the end of the city’s Pride festival in one go.

Gay Pride Month: Israel Defense Forces Facebook Photo Stirs Controversy

To celebrate Gay Pride month, the Israeli army posted a photo on its official Facebook page showing two soldiers strolling hand in hand through a sunny Tel Aviv street.

"It's Pride Month. Did you know that the IDF treats all of its soldiers equally? Let's see how many shares you can get for this photo," the caption accompanying the photo read.

Toronto council funds Pride Week despite participation of controversial group

City funding for Pride Week is safe for this year, after Toronto councillors approved their annual grant to the event, but publicly expressed their displeasure with one potential participant in the parade, condemning the use of the term “Israeli Apartheid.”

The compromise measure, introduced by Councillor Josh Colle, defused what has become a pressure-filled annual debate over the participation of Queers Against Israeli Apartheid or QuAIA in the Pride Parade.

While the vote settled the funding issue for this year, the debate is far from over.

Pride Toronto gets city funding — with a warning about ‘Israeli apartheid’ activists

Parceled with a threat from the deputy mayor, city council has voted to once again give funding to Pride Toronto.

In a unanimous vote Thursday, councillors approved a grant of roughly $124,000, which is about 8 per cent of Pride’s $1.6 million budget. As part of the compromise, councillors also voted to condemn the term “Israeli apartheid.”

“Next year, I’ll be the first guy out to say ‘no funding ever’” if any politically charged groups cause problems, cautioned deputy mayor Doug Holyday.

Mayor Rob Ford won’t attend gay outreach event

Mayor Rob Ford won’t attend a gay outreach event outside City Hall later this month, but still hasn’t ruled out attending Pride Week events this summer.

The May 17 rainbow flag-raising event at Nathan Phillips Square commemorates International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia. The low-key, half-hour ceremony is not a part of Pride Week festivities, none of which Ford attended last year.

Event organizers Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays first sent the mayor an invitation in March. PFLAG’s Toronto chapter said Tuesdaythat the mayor responded in late April, saying he couldn’t fit the event into his schedule but if that changes, he would let them know.

“Certainly, the mayor will be made most welcome should his schedule change,” president Irene Miller said. “We would be happy to have him stand with us and other councillors as that flag is raised.”

Councillor Gord Perks will read the city proclamation, which is signed by the mayor, in Ford’s stead. Perks has read the proclamation at the event the last two years. The ceremony will feature Toronto Maple Leafs president and general manager Brian Burke as a speaker.

Pride Toronto issues invitation to Rob Ford

Mayor Rob Ford will receive his official invitation to Pride Toronto 2012 festivities on Monday or Tuesday, but he has already ignored an olive branch from a prominent gay member of council.

Kristyn Wong-Tam wrote to Ford on Feb. 7 offering to host receptions for him to mark International Day Against Homophobia on May 17 and Pride, which begins June 22 and ends with the big parade on Canada Day.

“I do not believe that the media fully grasps the complexity of the positions held by yourself and other members of council,” she wrote. “To that end, I think we could work together to get past these very superficial impressions” with a reception “where a respectful and representative group can speak to the most essential principles of equality.”

Wong-Tam (Ward 27, Toronto Centre-Rosedale) said Ford has not replied. Last year, he famously ignored similar entreaties to continue the previous two mayors’ decade-long tradition of attending the parade to demonstrate an acceptance of Toronto’s gay communities.

The coaxing included an Air Canada Centre tour with Toronto Maple Leafs general manager Brian Burke, whose late son, Brendan, was gay. Ford told reporters he was too busy to attend an event in the 10-day schedule and cited a tradition of spending the Canada Day weekend at his family cottage.

Kevin Beaulieu, Pride Toronto executive director, said Friday that invitations were being sent to Ford and his council “imminently.”

Cardinal George: Chicago Gay Pride Parade, LGBT Movement Could 'Morph Into Ku Klux Klan'

Cardinal Francis George, the Archbishop of Chicago, this week told a Chicago news station that he agreed with a local Roman Catholic church's objections to the city's recently-adjusted Gay Pride Parade route passing by its doors and warned that the parade could "morph into the Ku Klux Klan."

George made the comment Sunday on Fox Chicago when asked about Our Lady of Mount Carmel's complaints that the parade passing by its Belmont Avenue location would force the church to cancel its morning mass. The church recently launched a petition urging the city to force parade organizers to adjust their plans.

"I go with the pastor," George told Fox. "He's telling us that he won't be able to have services on Sunday if that's the case. You don't want the gay liberation movement to morph into something like the Ku Klux Klan, demonstrating in the streets against Catholicism."

When the Fox host pointed out that George's comparison was "a little strong," the cardinal stood by his statement.

"It is, but you take a look at the rhetoric," he continued. "The rhetoric of the Klu Klux Klan, the rhetoric of some of the gay liberation people. Who is the enemy? Who is the enemy? The Catholic Church."

Pride funding likely safe — for now, says Mammoliti

Toronto Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti is conceding that hundreds of thousands of dollars of Pride funding already promised to organizers for 2011 will likely be delivered.

Mammoliti sent a release to media outlets Monday detailing his stance on publicly funded parades and marches. He had been expected to put forward a motion Tuesday to withhold the nearly $130,000 in grant money already committed to Pride organizers.

A video shot by Mammoliti on July 2, showing Dyke March participants carrying anti-Israeli apartheid signage, caused some concern about whether the City would make good on its promise to fund this year’s Pride events.

Earlier this year, Mammoliti demanded a written guarantee from festival organizers that the controversial group Queers Against Israeli Apartheid be banned from participating in Pride events.

QuAIA voluntarily agreed to stay away and in May, council approved funding on the condition that organizers ensure all participants adhere to the city’s anti-discrimination policy.

Mammoliti believes the presence of anti-Israeli apartheid signage constitutes a breach of the commitment organizers made, whether or not the signs belonged to members of QuAIA specifically. He also noted that some participants chanted, “We’re queer, we’re hot, Israeli apartheid is not.”

This year’s Pride funding “shouldn’t be safe,” he said, “but . . . it’ll probably be paid out because it’s deemed to be within policy by our bureaucrats. And while I still believe they’ve broken their commitment to the City of Toronto there’ll probably be nothing I can do to take this funding away this year.”

But Mammoliti’s watchful eyes are not resting solely on Pride.

“I have to congratulate the Pride Parade and the organizers because what they’ve done is they’ve opened up the eyes of City Hall to the larger picture. City taxpayers’ dollars should not be going towards any venue, including marches and parades, that have a political message slant to them.”

Mammoliti confirmed that if it were up to him, this would include funding for any artistic endeavour with a political message.

He denied that withdrawing public funding from anything considered “political messaging” might be fraught with problems.

“There’s no slippery slope here. It’s either we want tax dollars to go toward political messaging or we don’t. This councillor believes that we shouldn’t.”

Full Article
Source: Toronto Star 

Rob Ford’s big retreat

The cumulative effect of the Mayor’s bullying has come home to roost over his pride snub. Those on council willing to give him the benefit of the doubt in the past can’t now.

It’s a twisty drive in to Fawn Lake, across a narrow steel bridge that spans the Muskoka River, over crests in the road too steep to see the other side and past neatly kept cottages on what used to be farmland.

Here, near the end of an old logging road that runs along the north shore, on what’s known as Stephenson’s Point, is where Mayor Rob Ford comes when he doesn’t want to be found, to the cottage that’s been in the Ford family since the late 1960s, when the mayor was knee-high.

The place can be tricky to find, since Fawn is also known to locals as Deer Lake, and there are at least three Deer Lakes within 100 kilometres.

Fawn is tiny, taking a mere 20 minutes to paddle from end to end – less with the wind at your back. Which makes the Fords’ brown Viceroy in a clearing stand out all the more from the other cottages.

There are a couple of bigger ones. Two of them, brand new, are being built on 40 hectares further up the road, but a few properties have little more on them than a trailer or hunting cabin. The lake is inhabited by a handful of locals year-round. While the local municipality picks up garbage, the narrow road leading to the Fords’ place isn’t plowed in winter. A sign advises motorists to use the road at their own risk.

The cottage a few doors up from the Fords’ is on the market for half a million.

But none have anywhere near the beach frontage of the Fords’ (looks like sand was trucked in) or the number of water toys tied to the dock. There’s a volleyball net and play sets for the kids, and a big name to go with the spread – El Rancho Grande. Beauty. I think the name was big brother Doug’s idea, since he’s listed as the owner of the place on records kept at the Muskoka District land registry office.

Yep, it’s the party place to be for frolics in the sun, and gives the impression that the Fords are a fun-loving family.

I can almost see Rob now, chillin’ on one of the two family motorboats, soaking up his fave tunes, maybe some Supertramp or a little Zeppelin. Who needs the Pride parade when you’ve got this?

Talk about a backlash.

Who could have foreseen the mayor taking his biggest licks to date on the gay thing? In one way the push-back is karmic. What was Ford’s unlikely election victory, after all, if not the defeat of the “gay elites” (embodied by his chief rival, George Smitherman) that supposedly used to run this town, right? Check the vitriol spewed by Ford symps online over criticism by both the left and right in the media of the mayor’s Pride rebuff for proof of that out-there mindset.

In politics it’s usually the unexpected that kills.

After an audacious seven-plus months at the helm hammering out an ambitious – some would say ruthless – agenda, the unlikeliest slight, one of many,  has become a defining, if not the defining, moment in Ford’s tenure.

Many of his usual friends in the conservative media have deserted him.

They’ve been a little too quick, however, to chalk up this shemozzle to bad communications. They don’t know the half of it.

Truth is, Ford’s political staff have been trying for two months to get the boss to agree to attend at least one Pride event. But he flat-out refused. He was going to spend the weekend at the cottage with his family, and that was that. There was no budging from that position.

Right up to the last moment, the mayor’s spokespeople left the door open to a surprise appearance at the parade.

But it was all a ruse, for damage-control purposes. If memory serves, he was unequivocal about the matter of his Pride non-participation when asked about it during the election, too.

Enter big brother Doug, the councillor from Ward 2, to muck up the waters. When asked about Rob’s decision, he at first said he’d see what he could do to change his mind. Doug was singing a different tune 24 hours later, defending the mayor for wanting to spend time at the cottage. Mom was brought out to a ribbon-cutting to tug the public heartstrings. All that was missing was a doctor’s note. Controversy had turned to spectacle.

And inside the mayor’s office, some were putting the blame on Doug for sowing doubt about the mayor’s Pride intentions. Holy Moses! Doug a political liability? But it’s not the first time he’s spoken out of turn.

Indeed, some among the mayor’s staff wish Doug would “just shut the fuck up,” as one put it. The media have been accustomed to think protector Doug’s speaking for the mayor, but that’s not always true.

Maybe if the mayor made himself more available to the press corps there’d be less room for confusion about his intentions.

But he’s still a work in progress on the PR front, and that’s putting it mildly. You never know what Rob might say after he offers up the expected sound bite. He’s got flat feet.

It’s Doug who’s seen as the brains in the family, the engine that drives the Ford machine at City Hall. But it’s Doug who’s the political neophyte, as anyone who’s heard him speak at council can attest. The words “train” and “wreck” come to mind.

There’s no disputing that the brothers Ford are close. They’re in near-constant communication. But there’s a family dynamic at play between the two, maybe even a hint of sibling rivalry.

And the Ford brothers couldn’t be more different. Doug’s got the big car, the big house, the big money from the family biz, the big ideas: Ferris wheels on the waterfront, tunnels under the Gardiner, NFL football.

The mayor drives a minivan and lives in a modest bungalow. He manages the books for the family’s multimillion-dollar labelling business, but it’s unclear how much of the family fortune Rob’s been cut.

What’s clear from the Pride fiasco is that fatigue is setting in. The cumulative effect of the Fords’ bullying has come home to roost over Pride.

Those on council willing to give the mayor the benefit of the doubt in the past will have a harder time aligning themselves with him now.

That group would include those in the inner circle perhaps contemplating mayoral runs of their own in the future. Here’s looking at you, Karen Stintz and Michael Thompson.

The doubts are beginning to set in right at the top, among the mayor’s political staff, about whether Ford will be able to carry the vote on the big-money items coming up for council’s consideration, not the least of which is the Core Services Review.

The Pride wrangle has caused his allies to have a few second thoughts about their affiliation with the brand. The honeymoon may be over.

Origin
Source: Now Magazine 

Attacks on Pride: An open letter to Toronto Councillors

Dear Councillors,

I am sure you have many other things to do with your time apart from endlessly debating the issues of Israeli Apartheid and its positioning within Toronto Pride. I have appealed to you before but do so once more as in July 1st's daily Israeli newpaper, Ha'aretz, Irwin Cotler (Canadian MP, co-founder of the Canadian Parliamentary Committee to Combat Antisemitism and former justice minister) has finally put this argument to rest when he states unequivocally that criticism of Israel as an apartheid state is within the bounds of legitimate discourse. While my Jewish voice and those of countless others did not allay your fears in this regard, I hope the man who has led the charge not only against antisemitism in Canada, but who coined the phrase "the new antisemitism," can allow cooler heads to prevail.

I have written to you before as a member of the Jewish community and the gay community, as someone who has fought for justice my whole life, be it for Jewish rights, gay rights or, now, justice in Palestine. What being Jewish (and gay) has taught me is to fight for the rights of others, not only my own.

Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti, Councillor James Pasternak and Councillor Doug Ford, I hope you are listening: Cotler has suggested that it is not only legitimate criticism, but it is an important principle of democratic speech. Neither you Councillor Mammoliti, nor you Councillor Ford, nor your brother Rob, the Mayor, have terrific records when it comes to defending LGBT rights in this city, and it is becoming more and more clear to most of us that any problem with Queers Against Israeli Apartheid has become a ruse to defund Pride (and no doubt other minority cultural organizations to follow).

Councillor Mammoliti, you claim that "hate groups" (read the article here) however, I do not believe that as a Jew of conscience I have been participating in a "hate group") and "politics" have no place in parades, yet to be clear, you fund Pride as a cultural organization. Also to be more clear, your own city staff and manager have told you that the term Israel Apartheid DOES NOT contravene city policy. Now, Councillor Pasternak, I understand you want to change that policy (although you all voted unanimously to adopt the report) but again, I suggest you read Mr. Cotler's views on that -- he has a few years experience when it comes to antisemitism and the law. I too have fought antisemitism in this city, when neo-Nazis David Irving, Ernst Zundel and the like, were active here in Toronto.

Banning/threatening Pride because of a group, many of whom are Jewish, that criticizes Israeli state policy, cannot be compared to the real work of ridding a city of discrimination and antisemitism. These charges are clearly wrongheaded and dangerous thinking.

Councillor Mammoliti perhaps it is also unclear to you that the way Pride and many other institutions came to be is exactly through "activism," "politics" and engagement in civil rights. You would not have an anti-discrimination policy if it were not for the tireless work of the Dudley Laws in this city or the Doug Stewarts (Black Cap) or, frankly, the Tim McCaskells (of the Toronto Board of Education, Aids Action Now and now QuAIA) or Tony Souzas (also of QuAIA, founder of Gay Asians Toronto etc). Frankly, your homophobic comments over the years do not make you a great candidate to take on this debate. It's hard for most of us not to have suspicions that perhaps you have another agenda.

As for Team Ford, it's hard for us there as well not to think that with Rob Ford's absence from ALL Pride events and with the upcoming deficit we are now facing (which you admitted on 640 talk radio was indeed one of the concerns re-funding of Pride), that this isn't about antisemitism, hate or anything of the sort, but rather a reason to slash culture funding wherever you can (and maybe with a smattering of homophobia?). I mean, what else can we think with your voting record on LGBT issues?

I urge you to drop the witch hunt against the LGBT community and the larger agenda to defund Pride (and no doubt other city cultural events) and to calm the rhetoric. Do we really want to be a city that doesn't allow the expression of political opinions, in or outside of parades, marches, cultural events? TIFF, which you support generously, has a political position many times a day with films that espouse them from all over the world, so too Luminato, Caribbana, etc. And they are not all opinions you personally (or other constituents) might find "tasteful." The LGBT community has always had strong opinions on many matters, some specifically LGBT related, some about unions, and even some about the military. This is what makes for democracy.

Finally, if you think we are successful and affluent enough to be able to fund ourselves (as Councillor Mammoliti also stated in several interviews), then perhaps we should take our parade elsewhere (or let it die) and all the millions of dollars we bring with it. You might have quite a few very angry businessman and taxpayers when you have to add those lost millions to the deficit. And to be even-handed, you will have to cut off TIFF and Luminato and all the other cultural events that make this city not only great, but frankly put even more dollars in your coffers. A city without culture is not only dead but poorer in all senses of the word.

You cannot begin to cherry-pick with culture; policing the speech and actions of the LGBT community is not part of your job any more than deciding which films get played at TIFF or what plays happen in the theatres. Funding culture with the knowledge that it pays back tremendously is what is fiscally and morally responsible and hence part of your jobs as Toronto city councillors. We are your gravy.

Origin
Source: Rabble.ca 

Toronto Pride rocked by 'Israeli apartheid' spat

A dispute over political protest is simmering in the wake of Toronto's Pride weekend, after a group supporting the Palestinian cause took part in Saturday's Dyke March, and the organization Queers Against Israeli Apartheid unfurled a banner alongside Sunday’s parade.

Coun. Giorgio Mammoliti, a staunch ally of Mayor Rob Ford, filmed the Dyke March and said he will use his footage to try to axe Pride’s $125,000 in city funding.

“You have the Jewish community that’s very upset at what’s going on. And so some of us thought we resolved this thing at City Hall by saying just have them not show up. But they did show up, and now we’ve got a decision to make,” Mammoliti told media on Monday.

A group called Dykes and Trans People for Palestine took part in Saturday’s march, holding up banners reading “We stand with queers in Palestine” and “Free Palestine” and chanting “We’re sexy, we’re hot, Israeli apartheid’s not.”

Mammoliti, the councillor for Ward 7 (York West), alleges the contingent consisted largely of people from Queers Against Israeli Apartheid, which some Jewish groups say promulgates anti-Israel “hate speech."

The group said in April it wouldn’t participate in Sunday’s parade because it didn’t want to give Ford and his allies a pretext to cut Pride’s funding.

Full Article
Source: CBC news 

Toronto elected a mayor, not a priest

It’s not easy being mayor. And it shouldn’t be. Not in a big city with complex relationships, disparate dreams, and citizens sprung from the corners of the globe and brought together to navigate ancient grievances.

No, it’s not easy being a mayor of a large city with a world view and global reach.

So, there is only a little corner of sympathy today for Mayor Rob Ford, the people’s choice who chose to fold his arms when extended hands were what Toronto required this past week of gay community events.

Stubbornly clinging to a narrow view of his role, his purpose and his job, the mayor squandered a civic moment and laid the carpet for many hateful people to engage in cruel thoughts and spout vitriol.

I got a full dose of that, following a column stating Mayor Ford had a civic duty to attend the Parade or some other Pride week event. Yes, a full 90 per cent of the reaction supported Ford’s decision to snub Pride.

I expected the same from friends, family and fellow church members.

I understand where Ford is coming from — all the excuses about family time at the cottage notwithstanding. If family time was the real reason, the mayor would have spent the past weekend with his immediate family and still find time to spend one hour or fraction thereof with the gay side of his civic family. There were a multitude of events that need not upset his sensibilities or offend his sense of right or wrong.

So, the mayor didn’t have to attend the Pride parade. Many citizens refuse to attend the parade because it’s too risqué, too racy, too much nudity, too much exhibitionism for their prudish, some say sexually conservative or repressed selves.

Those are moral choices made by the individual, the citizen, not the civic father.

If the only way to give a civic, secular imprimatur to this major city event was to attend the parade, then, as mayor, you must bury your personal misgivings and attend. Alas, Ford had many other options — including the Pride flag-raising on the civic square right outside his office.

By avoiding every single event, no matter how innocuous, Ford sent out the signal that gay people are not part of his city. He will take their taxes. He will take the economic benefits that flowed from the event. He will even give a couple hundred thousands in seed money to deliver millions. But gays don’t count.

Full Article
Source: Toronto Star 

Pride funding in jeopardy after Mammoliti video gets rise from City

Seventeen minutes of amateur video shot by one of the mayor’s closest allies during Pride festivities has set the stage for an intense battle over publically funded events in Toronto.

In the short-term, Councillor Doug Ford suggested the city may withhold hundreds of thousands of dollars in Pride funding already promised to organizers.

In the long-term, the footage, which shows dyke parade participants carrying anti-Israeli apartheid signage, could have drastic implications for every entity that receives city grants, from Caribana to the Toronto International Film Festival.

“We shouldn’t be funding any political messaging at all,” said Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti. “I think that we have to re-evaluate and reconsider everything we do with taxpayer’s dollars, which yes,” also applies to the arts community.

Mammoliti has the support of Deputy Mayor Doug Holyday, who wants the city to create a policy that will prevent public dollars being spent on a political message.

Holyday said art grant recipients — which are paid out of the same city fund as Pride — will also need to be scrutinized, but he isn’t sure the same rule should apply to them.

“I do think it extends to all communities, but I’d need to think a little bit more about that,” he said. “I wouldn’t want to say just because a movie is controversial or delivers a political message that it doesn’t deserve our funding.”

On Saturday, Mammoliti — who describes himself as the mayor’s quarterback and is a member of the powerful executive committee — stood on the sidelines of the Dyke Parade documenting what he says are violations of the agreement between Pride organizers and the city.

Full Article
Source: Toronto Star 

Councillor urges end to Pride funding after filming Dyke March

Giorgio Mammoliti and his camcorder want to axe city funding for Pride Week.

The city councillor says he captured an anti-Israeli group chanting the controversial phrase “Israeli Apartheid” during Saturday’s Dyke Parade.

“I see this as cockiness, I see this as a slap in the face to City Hall and I see this as a slap in the face to taxpayers in this city,” Mammoliti said after the parade. “This councillor does not want them to get funded this year. I will be seeing whether the mayor agrees with me.”

Pride co-chair Francisco Alvarez said his organization would go bankrupt without the city’s $130,000 in grants, and might lose their licence to hold the 2014 World Pride festival.

Earlier this year, Mammoliti demanded a letter from Pride organizers to guarantee the controversial activist group Queers Against Israeli Apartheid would be barred from the festival. He suggested city funding, which amounts to about a quarter of the festival’s budget, should be contingent on the group’s exclusion.

Tensions were quelled when the group itself promised not to participate. However, Mammoliti vowed to film the parade when the group Dykes and Trans People for Palestine advertised it would march holding banners and signs with the term “Israeli Apartheid.”

“They may have been a new group but they were shouting and they were chanting and the slogans of ‘Israeli Apartheid’ were all there. I got it all on tape,” Mammoliti said of the group of 25. “There was no attempt whatsoever from organizers to stop them from being there.”

Organizers said they did not see the controversial group.

“Pride has done everything it can to comply with the letter of the law and to comply with every single policy that the city prescribed,” Alvarez said. “We need to see that proof — until that time, we can’t really respond.”

Fellow city councillor Shelley Carroll tweeted a photo of her colleague at the parade.

“There’s the video camera. Pretty sure you paid for it taxpayers. Respect for taxpayers,” she wrote.

Mammoliti is one of Mayor Rob Ford’s staunchest allies. Ford has not attended any Pride events and said he won’t attend Sunday’s flagship parade because he wants to spend time with family at a Muskoka cottage.

“When the mayor won’t even attend, I’m kind of surprised that this councillor feels that it’s a good use of his time to prowl around with a camera,” Alvarez said.

Full Article
Source: Toronto Star 

Ford and the ‘family values’ case for gay rights

To Irene Miller, who will march down Church St. on Sunday with moms, dads, sisters and brothers, Mayor Rob Ford’s absence would be a declaration.

“He would be choosing his family over our family,” says the president of PFLAG (Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) Toronto, who waits in vain for Ford to answer her invitation to the Pride parade.

“We’re a safe place to march. We’re moms and dads wearing lots of suntan lotion, T-shirts and sensible shoes,” she said, adding it’s vital to send a message of equality to gays and straights.

“One in 10 hands he shakes every day are probably LGTB (lesbian, gay, transsexual or bisexual), and probably three or four in 10 know and support someone who is gay. I think he should represent every single person in the city.”

After Ford nonchalantly refused to commit to any Pride activities beyond a proclamation signed behind closed doors, he was caught off-guard by the resulting uproar.

His team scrambled to a “family values” narrative — the super-busy mayor was heading north for a few days to spend Canada Day with his clan. “My family comes first,” Ford told reporters. Added his mother Diane: “He just wants to spend time with his family.”

Despite the fact that Pride spans 10 days — and that Ford has a history of brow-raising statements about gays — the public comments on talk radio, blogs and news websites this week suggest his strategy has worked, somewhat.

The truth is that Toronto’s mayor is uncomfortable with the idea of being at a gay gathering, a source close to Ford told the Star. The mayor spurned advice to make a gesture in order to relieve the pressure, said the source, who would not speculate on the cause of Ford’s discomfort.

Full Article
Source: Toronto Star 

We’re not done yet

Pride festivities are now over 30 years old, so theoretically they’ve reached adult status.

Too bad that isn’t true of the straight world, which still can’t wrap its head around the complexities of queer life.

The cold shoulder Mayor Rob Ford’s giving Pride this year makes the point, but city council isn’t the only place where queer-dissing is tolerated.

Noticed how everyone’s not loving that rainbow flag? We may think of Toronto as worldly and cosmopolitan, but the Dufferin-Peel Catholic School Board doesn’t want to see that multicoloured symbol in its so-called places of learning. And many Catholic schools are still having conniptions over a term like “gay-straight alliance.”

The stats aren’t friendly either. Queer-bashing happens regularly, and the suicide rate among gay teens is higher than in almost every other demographic.

And while kids have it tough, so do aging gay couples in retirement homes.

But beyond these obvious considerations I’ll make a more daring assumption. Admit it. About half of you LGBT readers (yes, I mean NOW readers) are either not out at work and/or still dread the predictable interrogations you face at family dinners.

All across the spectrum, from those who experience the devastation of bullying and other toxic manifestations of homophobia to those of us who are lucky enough to harbour relatively trivial concerns – like, where does a well-endowed butch dyke shop anyway? – the world is not always a welcoming place.

But there’s no question, to paraphrase the It Gets Better campaign, that things are better than they were.

And a lot of that has to do with Pride. The activists who helped found Pride from the roots of gay liberation worry that festival organizers have lost sight of the event’s history of resistance. But as it’s turned out, the festival continues to remind those who want to shut us out that our numbers are huge, our vision is strong and we can attract nearly a million people – straight, queer and beyond – for a mammoth party that generates not one single violent incident.

Better still, the festival gives those kids from small towns and everyone else who feels like an outsider a safe zone to be themselves.

Pride Day presents a magnificent spectacle demonstrating the power – financial and political – of Toronto’s queer community and celebrating sexual diversity and inclusiveness.

Come on down and hang out alongside a vibrant community that values freedom and is passionate about our city.

And you can wear whatever you want.

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Source: Now 

Why won’t Rob Ford go to gay events?

Why the mayor seems to be shunning occasions involving homosexuals is being debated in many corners of Toronto’s gay community as the huge signature Pride festival gets underway.

Rob Ford’s office flatly denies that’s the case. But his decision to head to his cottage rather than the July 3 Pride parade — with no explanation for the festival’s nine other days — coupled with years of brow-raising comments and council votes, has many jumping to conclusions.

“He’s the mayor of a huge metropolis with a big gay community,” said Casey Oraa, chair of the Political Action Committee of Queer Ontario.

“His campaign was all about respect for taxpayers. Where’s his respect for us?”

Ford’s office took the unusual step Thursday of presenting his mother, Diane, to reporters before the mayor cut the ribbon of a medical supply store in Etobicoke.

“He just wants to spend the weekend with his family,” she said when asked about his decision.

Asked if he will attend any Pride events, the mayor said: “I’ll take it one day at a time. My family comes first.” Asked if he is homophobic, Ford looked away and mumbled something unintelligible under his breath.

Ford’s Pride decision follows his rebuffing of a half-dozen other similar overtures since last fall. His singular engagement with the gay community — signing the Pride Week proclamation — was done privately, with nobody from Pride present.

“Clearly it’s an ideological position,” Oraa said. “I’d respect him more if he would own up to his homophobia — say ‘This is what I believe.’”

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Source: Toronto Star