blake 3:17
22nd April 2010, 06:16
Toronto's gay and lesbian pride march has tried to exclude Queers Against Israeli Apartheid from participating in the past. Now city bureaucrats, under pressure from Zionists and certain mainstream gay politicians, are threatening to pull funding from Pride Day is QuAIA is allowed to participate.
From QuAIA:
LGBT Community Condemns Sponsor Interference in Pride Toronto (http://queersagainstapartheid.org/2010/04/20/lgbt-community-condemns-sponsor-interference-in-pride-toronto/)
20 04 2010
THREATS TO FUNDING FOLLOW PRESSURE FROM ISRAEL LOBBYISTS
Prominent activists from Toronto’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans (LGBT) communities joined together today to condemn moves by some sponsors of the city’s annual Pride festival to dictate who will be allowed to participate in the Pride parade.
“We don’t need corporate sponsors, government funders, or external lobby groups telling our community what we can talk about in our own parade,” says Tim McCaskell, an organizer of the protests against bathhouse raids which sparked the creation of Pride Toronto in 1981.
An April 18, 2010 feature story in the Toronto Star revealed that City of Toronto staff warned Pride Toronto to ban activist group Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (QuAIA) from the parade or face repercussions to its city funding. Earlier this month, a leaked e-mail from TD Bank Financial Group revealed that the premier corporate sponsor was requesting a meeting with the Pride Toronto board of directors to discuss the inclusion of QuAIA in the parade.
“Our community has successfully resisted censorship for decades, and we aren’t going to stop now,” says Anna Willats, a former Honoured Dyke of Pride Toronto. “City bureaucrats and corporate sponsors have no business attaching strings to their financial support that would take the politics out of Pride.”
Source: http://queersagainstapartheid.org/
City may cut Pride funding over ‘Israeli apartheid’ marchers
April 18, 2010
Daniel Dale
City bureaucrats may withdraw funding from Pride Toronto next year if the activist group Queers Against Israeli Apartheid is allowed to march in this summer’s Pride parade.
The city, which gave Pride $121,000 in 2009, believes its anti-discrimination policy was likely violated by QuAIA’s conduct and very presence at last summer’s parade, said general manager of economic development and culture Mike Williams. If Pride were to permit another violation, Williams said, there could be “very serious” repercussions.
“We have the right to disqualify them from future grants, so we certainly would look at that,” he said. Characterizing his message as a “strong warning,” he added: “Every circumstance is different, so I’m loath to tell somebody flat out, ‘If this happens you won’t get your money next year,’ but it sure would become a very strong possibility.”
Pride executive director Tracey Sandilands did not respond to messages requesting comment on Williams’ statements. In an interview hours earlier, Sandilands said Pride had not yet determined whether or not QuAIA would be permitted to participate this year.
“We have no legal grounds to ban the word apartheid,” she said. “While I understand that there are a lot of people who don’t like the wording, there’s got to be more than just the name of the organization.” But, she said, “The city has now pointed out to us that in terms of the anti-discrimination policy, the fact that those words make certain participants feel uncomfortable means that we were in contravention of the policy... Whether there was a funding issue attached to it or not, we would not want to be in contravention of an anti-discrimination policy. That would be crazy.”
Asked how Pride could both avoid banning QuAIA and satisfy the policy, given that even its name makes some uncomfortable, she said: “It’s a good question, and it’s not one I’m sure we have an answer for as yet.”
QuAIA member Elle Flanders called the city’s warning “shameful.” QuAIA, she said, merely seeks to express a political opinion at an event with a long political history.
“They're trying to compare it to hate speech, and I find it deeply offensive, as somebody who's been fighting human rights battles for a really long time, to hear that criticism of the state of Israel is, somehow, hate speech. No way. This is not anti-Semitism,” said Flanders, one of several Jewish QuAIA members. “I'm a big Jew-lover. And my Judaism taught me to stand up for what is right. This has nothing to do with anything other than criticism of Israel... Political difference need not be censored.”
Source: http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/797207--city-may-cut-pride-funding-over-israeli-apartheid-marchers
Pride Toronto should embrace free expression, even if it means less cash
NEEDFUL THINGS
Matt Mills (http://www.xtra.ca/public/Toronto/author/Matt%20Mills.aspx) / Toronto / Wednesday, April 21, 2010
In a Feb 9 letter to Pride Toronto executive director Tracey Sandilands, Ward 27 city councillor Kyle Rae wrote that he "found the intervention of Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (QuAIA) in last year's Pride parade completely out of keeping with the spirit and values of Pride Toronto."
Rae urged the organization's board of directors to "review the parade entrance requirements to ensure that Pride's mission, vision and values are reflected in the contingent's participation."
In other words, hinted Rae, get QuAIA to soften its political messaging. Tell its members to stop using the term "Israeli apartheid" in the parade. If they can't be convinced, prevent them from marching altogether.
A month later, Pride announced its sign-vetting policy.
It was pure folly from the beginning. Pride Toronto agreed to take on the mantle of censor and to establish an ethics committee empowered to weed out unsavoury political views. Sandilands told me the organization was drafting a "freedom of expression policy." It was all so positively Orwellian, as though a series of directives issued in newspeak from the Ministry of Truth.
But as you'd expect, gay and lesbian people saw right through it all and called Pride Toronto on its obvious misstep. And to its credit, on March 23, the organization issued a brief correction setting things right.
Tempest in a teapot, tamed. Time to move on.
But then on April 18, a report in the Toronto Star's online edition (http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/797207--city-may-cut-pride-funding-over-israeli-apartheid-marchers) quoted Mike Williams, Toronto's general manager of economic development and culture, saying that QuAIA likely violated the city's anti-discrimination policy and that Pride Toronto risked losing city funding next year if it doesn't do something about it this year.
"We have the right to disqualify them from future grants, so we certainly would look at that," Williams told the Star. "Every circumstance is different, so I'm loath to tell somebody flat out, 'If this happens you won't get your money next year.' But it sure would become a very strong possibility."
Pride Toronto received almost one third of its $3 million in revenue in 2009 from various levels of government. A little more than $173,000 came from the City of Toronto (ironically, $5,000 of that in the form of an Access, Equity and Human Rights Grant). More than a third more came from corporate sponsorships. Pride Toronto raised the remainder — $822,668 — itself by collecting donations and participation fees, and by selling beer and advertising.
Pride Toronto has been mainlining government and corporate sponsorship dollars for some time now. And when the dealer wants a favour, it hardly ever seems too much to ask. This is a perfect illustration of the perils of relying on — of believing there is an absolute need for — government grant and corporate sponsorship money for advocacy work. There are almost always strings attached, hoops to jump through and conditions to meet. A little concession here, some creative rationalization there, a little going back on the things you believe; it's all worth it in the end when you weigh all the good you can do with a huge pile of government cash.
But the cost in this case is simply too high. Censoring the opinions of parade participants, no matter what they are, flies in the face of everything the gay liberation movement was built upon.
Source: http://www.xtra.ca/public/Toronto/Pride_Toronto_should_embrace_free_exrpression_even _if_it_means_less_cash-8527.aspx
From QuAIA:
LGBT Community Condemns Sponsor Interference in Pride Toronto (http://queersagainstapartheid.org/2010/04/20/lgbt-community-condemns-sponsor-interference-in-pride-toronto/)
20 04 2010
THREATS TO FUNDING FOLLOW PRESSURE FROM ISRAEL LOBBYISTS
Prominent activists from Toronto’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans (LGBT) communities joined together today to condemn moves by some sponsors of the city’s annual Pride festival to dictate who will be allowed to participate in the Pride parade.
“We don’t need corporate sponsors, government funders, or external lobby groups telling our community what we can talk about in our own parade,” says Tim McCaskell, an organizer of the protests against bathhouse raids which sparked the creation of Pride Toronto in 1981.
An April 18, 2010 feature story in the Toronto Star revealed that City of Toronto staff warned Pride Toronto to ban activist group Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (QuAIA) from the parade or face repercussions to its city funding. Earlier this month, a leaked e-mail from TD Bank Financial Group revealed that the premier corporate sponsor was requesting a meeting with the Pride Toronto board of directors to discuss the inclusion of QuAIA in the parade.
“Our community has successfully resisted censorship for decades, and we aren’t going to stop now,” says Anna Willats, a former Honoured Dyke of Pride Toronto. “City bureaucrats and corporate sponsors have no business attaching strings to their financial support that would take the politics out of Pride.”
Source: http://queersagainstapartheid.org/
City may cut Pride funding over ‘Israeli apartheid’ marchers
April 18, 2010
Daniel Dale
City bureaucrats may withdraw funding from Pride Toronto next year if the activist group Queers Against Israeli Apartheid is allowed to march in this summer’s Pride parade.
The city, which gave Pride $121,000 in 2009, believes its anti-discrimination policy was likely violated by QuAIA’s conduct and very presence at last summer’s parade, said general manager of economic development and culture Mike Williams. If Pride were to permit another violation, Williams said, there could be “very serious” repercussions.
“We have the right to disqualify them from future grants, so we certainly would look at that,” he said. Characterizing his message as a “strong warning,” he added: “Every circumstance is different, so I’m loath to tell somebody flat out, ‘If this happens you won’t get your money next year,’ but it sure would become a very strong possibility.”
Pride executive director Tracey Sandilands did not respond to messages requesting comment on Williams’ statements. In an interview hours earlier, Sandilands said Pride had not yet determined whether or not QuAIA would be permitted to participate this year.
“We have no legal grounds to ban the word apartheid,” she said. “While I understand that there are a lot of people who don’t like the wording, there’s got to be more than just the name of the organization.” But, she said, “The city has now pointed out to us that in terms of the anti-discrimination policy, the fact that those words make certain participants feel uncomfortable means that we were in contravention of the policy... Whether there was a funding issue attached to it or not, we would not want to be in contravention of an anti-discrimination policy. That would be crazy.”
Asked how Pride could both avoid banning QuAIA and satisfy the policy, given that even its name makes some uncomfortable, she said: “It’s a good question, and it’s not one I’m sure we have an answer for as yet.”
QuAIA member Elle Flanders called the city’s warning “shameful.” QuAIA, she said, merely seeks to express a political opinion at an event with a long political history.
“They're trying to compare it to hate speech, and I find it deeply offensive, as somebody who's been fighting human rights battles for a really long time, to hear that criticism of the state of Israel is, somehow, hate speech. No way. This is not anti-Semitism,” said Flanders, one of several Jewish QuAIA members. “I'm a big Jew-lover. And my Judaism taught me to stand up for what is right. This has nothing to do with anything other than criticism of Israel... Political difference need not be censored.”
Source: http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/797207--city-may-cut-pride-funding-over-israeli-apartheid-marchers
Pride Toronto should embrace free expression, even if it means less cash
NEEDFUL THINGS
Matt Mills (http://www.xtra.ca/public/Toronto/author/Matt%20Mills.aspx) / Toronto / Wednesday, April 21, 2010
In a Feb 9 letter to Pride Toronto executive director Tracey Sandilands, Ward 27 city councillor Kyle Rae wrote that he "found the intervention of Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (QuAIA) in last year's Pride parade completely out of keeping with the spirit and values of Pride Toronto."
Rae urged the organization's board of directors to "review the parade entrance requirements to ensure that Pride's mission, vision and values are reflected in the contingent's participation."
In other words, hinted Rae, get QuAIA to soften its political messaging. Tell its members to stop using the term "Israeli apartheid" in the parade. If they can't be convinced, prevent them from marching altogether.
A month later, Pride announced its sign-vetting policy.
It was pure folly from the beginning. Pride Toronto agreed to take on the mantle of censor and to establish an ethics committee empowered to weed out unsavoury political views. Sandilands told me the organization was drafting a "freedom of expression policy." It was all so positively Orwellian, as though a series of directives issued in newspeak from the Ministry of Truth.
But as you'd expect, gay and lesbian people saw right through it all and called Pride Toronto on its obvious misstep. And to its credit, on March 23, the organization issued a brief correction setting things right.
Tempest in a teapot, tamed. Time to move on.
But then on April 18, a report in the Toronto Star's online edition (http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/797207--city-may-cut-pride-funding-over-israeli-apartheid-marchers) quoted Mike Williams, Toronto's general manager of economic development and culture, saying that QuAIA likely violated the city's anti-discrimination policy and that Pride Toronto risked losing city funding next year if it doesn't do something about it this year.
"We have the right to disqualify them from future grants, so we certainly would look at that," Williams told the Star. "Every circumstance is different, so I'm loath to tell somebody flat out, 'If this happens you won't get your money next year.' But it sure would become a very strong possibility."
Pride Toronto received almost one third of its $3 million in revenue in 2009 from various levels of government. A little more than $173,000 came from the City of Toronto (ironically, $5,000 of that in the form of an Access, Equity and Human Rights Grant). More than a third more came from corporate sponsorships. Pride Toronto raised the remainder — $822,668 — itself by collecting donations and participation fees, and by selling beer and advertising.
Pride Toronto has been mainlining government and corporate sponsorship dollars for some time now. And when the dealer wants a favour, it hardly ever seems too much to ask. This is a perfect illustration of the perils of relying on — of believing there is an absolute need for — government grant and corporate sponsorship money for advocacy work. There are almost always strings attached, hoops to jump through and conditions to meet. A little concession here, some creative rationalization there, a little going back on the things you believe; it's all worth it in the end when you weigh all the good you can do with a huge pile of government cash.
But the cost in this case is simply too high. Censoring the opinions of parade participants, no matter what they are, flies in the face of everything the gay liberation movement was built upon.
Source: http://www.xtra.ca/public/Toronto/Pride_Toronto_should_embrace_free_exrpression_even _if_it_means_less_cash-8527.aspx