Letters to the editor
Feeling excluded
As a 38-year-old gay man with HIV I am writing to ask for your help in raising issues with the way Mardi Gras is run for us as HIV+ people.
Mardi Gras comes around and we are bombarded with all the great things that are on. For those of us who rely totally on the DSP we are unable to attend any events because they are too dear for us.
Most of would love to attend some of the things on at this special time of the year. We are flat out getting to the parade, let alone attending any events.
I have discussed with HIV+ friends and we are in agreement that it wouldn’t take much for New Mardi Gras to offer free or even discounted seats to these events. They run for the whole period of Mardi Gras and we are just asking for us to be offered a way to attend.
It seems that everyone is willing to offer support to events to raise funds for organisations such as ACON, BGF, the Luncheon Club but when it comes to us being supported in a way that would benefit our lives they don’t give a stuff.
Giving, supportive community? Yeah, right?
We are all struggling with different things in our lives and I feel it only justified that New Mardi Gras be more receptive to us during this special time.
I sent New Mardi Gras an email telling them this is being discussed by the HIV+ community. I was informed that this would be the perfect time to to try and convince them to do something so they have enough time to implement and to take into account these thoughts.
We have all paid our dues to the community over the years and we all feel we are being excluded from our party and the one time of the year we get to celebrate with our friends and the gay community.
The positive community hopes you will address this issue to help us access the Sydney Mardi Gras.
-” Jay
FLOP PREDICTED
What a disgrace in splitting the events [Mardi Gras parade and party].
How do you plan to accommodate an additional 20,000 people wanting to party after the parade -” the day you could proudly walk down the street to Fox Studios, after sharing the gayest parade in the world with all sorts of friends?
Prediction: total flop.
-” Taylor
VISITORS WON’T COME
Mardi Gras keep telling us about the millions of dollars which are spent by interstate visitors, many of whom only come for Mardi Gras weekend.
They will be left with the choice of which weekend to come but without a party and a parade, many of them probably won’t bother coming at all.
Why didn’t Mardi Gras consult with the community about this one? Or do they know what’s best for all of us now?
-” Tim
STUPID IDEA
With shock have I just read an email from New Mardi Gras announcing a significant change to the festival in 2010 that includes stripping apart the parade and the party to be scheduled on two separate weekends.
Are those guys completely out of their mind?
Tearing the parade and the party apart will be financial suicide! Do they seriously expect that some book readings in Enmore or art exhibitions in Surry Hills will be enough to keep tourists from elsewhere in Australia or even from overseas in Sydney for a whole week after the parade just to get the chance to participate in a lame party which has always been and always will be completely overpriced?
Being initially an international tourist to Australia myself, I can assure you visitors from overseas come especially for the parade which indeed is unique, and not for the party which you can get in a more or less similar format anywhere in the world.
The only reason anyone goes to the party is that it’s right on Mardi Gras night and the organisers have been successfully communicating for years that the Mardi Gras experience is not complete without doing the party.
Nothing is more insane from a commercial standpoint than ripping these two events apart. I would have assumed this should be clear to them but obviously it isn’t.
I hope they spare us the whinging afterwards if they go bankrupt once again as a result of this disastrous decision -” it is pretty clear from the outset this is a very stupid idea!
-” Soren
GAY ASIAN MEN
On behalf of the Asian Marching Boy’s steering committee, we’d like to let the community know what we’re up to.
After taking a rest from the full-on (but heaps of fun!) Chinese New Year and Mardi Gras parades earlier this year, we’re starting to make plans for the second half of 2009 and beyond.
Mardi Gras 2010 is really only just around the corner, and we’re really excited to get working on its theme, -˜History around the world’.
To Andrew (SSO 970) -” it’s great to know we weren’t the only ones missing our spectacular events. But with big losses to our steering committee in 2008, we thought it would be best to focus our time and effort into what turned out to be a hugely successful and fabulous Chinese New Year and Mardi Gras parade.
We’d like to give a huge holler out to the wonderful community out there that’s been supporting us, and a super special mega-thanks to all our marchers.
We hope to see you all at our events later this year as we continue to celebrate the gay Asian men’s community.
If you’d like to get involved contact us through our website, asianmarchingboys.org
-” The Asian Marching Boys
IDAHO THANKS
A big thank you from Community Action Against Homophobia goes to all those who attended or helped out on the day or promoted this event.
Here are some photos of last Sunday’s IDAHO rally. Check them out at http://www.caah.org/photogallery/frame_page0au.htm. Click on the thumbnails to access the picture.
If anyone has any photos of the rally, send them to [email protected] and I will put them on the CAAH website as well.
-” Ben
NOT SO GAY-FRIENDLY
I’ve been campaigning to aid Clover Moore’s Animal Regulation of Sale Bill, and get an inquiry into the pet industry.
I contacted my local state Labor MP for Heffron, Kristina Keneally, and was told that Labor does not support this bill.
During my investigations, I discovered an alarming fact. Kristina Keneally, in my opinion, is actually not too supportive of the gay community.
Ms Keneally, is a conservative religious American Christian, having earned all her -˜qualifications’ at Christian institutions, well-known for their anti-gay and anti-abortion stances, such as Marianist University of Dayton, USA.
Ms Keneally narrowly won a bitter Labor preselection battle against Deirdre Grusovin in 2003.
While party members toe the party line on some issues, such as gay issues, and remain silent on their disapproval, should an American religious type progress to the higher ranks of a political party that’s supposed to be gay-friendly, it could ultimately spell disaster for us.
Heffron has a large gay and lesbian population.
The next election may be a few years away, but you should look at the candidate your preferred party has preselected before voting rather than voting along party lines.
In some cases, by voting Labor you may end up getting someone who’s worse than Family First.
-” Timmy
FINE-TUNING
So the Federal Government is going to recognise our relationship defined by two toothbrushes in the same cup. The picture needs a little fine-tuning for our household.
We need three more brushes in our cup, appropriately logoed Pooh Bear, Spider-man and Dora the Explorer, for our three foster children. With the wonderful support of a foster care agency, our family grew some years ago and we are now looking at applying to adopt to provide the security and permanency we all desire.
Since the children have been placed with us, one of us has been receiving a family tax allowance commonly know as family tax benefit A and B from the Federal Government. We understand that, come July, Centrelink will recognise both our incomes and make, I presume, reductions to the family tax benefit.
This we accept but where is the equality when the state Government will not acknowledge us as a couple, as parents and allow both of us to apply for the adoption of the children we both love and care for.
Take our money under the guise of equality but don’t give equality where it counts in our home by acknowledging we are parents.
I am also concerned about how the Government is getting this message to other homosexuals who may be in our situation. We don’t live in the city and rarely get the gay papers hence we only found out about the changes by chance. If we hadn’t, then I presume we would be liable for a hefty back payment to Centrelink.
-” Nathan
WOW – I can’t believe they would split the two. I was just thinking I wanted to travel over next year but won’t be able to take a whole week for it now.
Sadly – exSydneysider
GREAT IDEA!
I’m all for it.
The over all festival will be shorter but it will be more active throughout rather than just one big night.
I’ve skipped the parade for many years coz i just can’t do both party & parade.
Don’t listen to the whingers mardi gras, GREAT IDEA!
Now we really get 2 weekends :)
Way to go guys, as the insane Mardi Gras fairy strikes again. In the history of bad ideas that have marked the various lives of Mardi Gras, the recent maddeningly inappropriate decision of New Mardi Gras to split the parade and party events over different weekends for the first time has to rank as one of the absolutely worst.
Talk about dropping an unexpected bombshell, with no warning. I mean, if it ain’t broke people, why meddle with it. Last year’s parade and party were brilliant. This just reeks of change for change’s sake, because there ain;t no necessity here. And if it is change for change’s sake, then that’s just an ego wank for the current board intent on “leaving their mark”.
At the very least, this idea should have been publicly floated and debated before a decision was made and action taken. Certainly it shouldn’t be something that was just secretly sample tested.
I am sure there are many of us who travel to Sydney for Mardi Gras, who neither have the time, money, nor capability to take leave from work and give over a whole week plus to Mardi Gras so we can do both the parade and party.
By the same token, flying up and down to Sydney for two weekends in a row is also out of the question. My partner and I live in Melbourne and care for his ailing elderly parents. We are surviving on one income, as he is caring for them full time. And for us to do Mardi Gras, we not only have to find the money, but also have to arrange to get help in to look after the folks while we are gone.
This means navigating an extended stay is really not feasible. So now we will have to choose – do the parade or do the party, both of which I love. Indeed, I am so incensed at this decision, I will most likely not do either.
It’s not as if there was a huge grass roots push for it. And while our particular circumstances are perhaps unusual, I imagine there are any number of people with parenting, caring, work, health etc reasons for whom this decision to split the events presents them with exactly the same quandry.
In twenty years, I have only missed the parade and party once, and that was a matter of necessity, not choice. Thanks New Mardi Gras for ensuring that I am unlikely to keep the tradition going from 2010 on. Do what you like with the festival, but leave our parade and party the way it was – held together on the same day, marking the end of the festival.
Remember New Mardi Gras board, these events belong to “we the people”, and not to you, who are only the “custodians”. We all know it’s a thankless job and you work hard, but that still doesn’t give you the right to stuff it up for the rest of us. Reverse this ridiculous decision before its too late and permanent damage is done to the institution.
– Phil