Enola Gay calls for marchers

Peaceniks of all kinds are being called on to join GLBT group Enola Gay at the anti-war rally in Hyde Park on Sunday 16 February.

The peace march coincides with the Mardi Gras fair day, and supporters are asked to assemble at the Broadway corner of Victoria Park at 11:30am on the day. From there the group will board buses to go to Hyde Park and participate in the rally, which starts at midday.

We are here, we are queer, and we are not going shopping! Well, maybe just in the morning, joked Enola Gay member Paul van Reyk. Sure it’s fair day, but how many more fair days will there be if we allow Bush, Howard and Blair to have their dirty war?

Van Reyk said that Howard’s preparedness to enter a war without United Nations sanction represented a direct attack on the legitimacy of an organisation to which gays and lesbians have successfully looked in the past to defend our human and civil rights.

Enola Gay is calling on fair day stall-holders to close their stalls between midday and 1pm as an act of solidarity with the anti-war movement, and also wants New Mardi Gras to make announcements during the day, reminding people about the rally.

New Mardi Gras co-chair Michael Woodhouse said New Mardi Gras were in discussions with (rally organisers) the Trades and Labor Council about working cooperatively. There had been discussions about having anti-war petitions and speakers at fair day, Woodhouse said, although at the time of going to press they had not been confirmed.

Woodhouse said it was up to individual stall-holders to decide how they wished to respond to Enola Gay’s call for the midday-1pm stall closure.

Bring yourself, your partners, your friends, your dogs, your kids, your whistles, your own messages and your voices and join us in opposing this unconscionable war-mongering, van Reyk said.