The Gay community deserves better than an annual festival of depravity

The joie de vivre there should have been more of in Pride 2012

Characterized as the civil rights issue of our generation,  the struggle for Gay rights in Canada is a battle that has been won. Now the main threat against homosexual status in this country is the descent into unintended self-parody. 

Homosexuality has moved from being treated as a degenerate crime to a form of mental illness to a natural facet of human behavior within the span of a hundred years. That, of course, is in advanced western societies. Though a constant embarrassment to western cultural relativists, it remains that in parts of the Caribbean and Africa, Gays still face legal sanctions and in almost every Muslim country they are subject to severest forms of state-sanctioned persecution. 

But here, in Canada, in 2012, Gays have achieved full equality under the law. That and the many contributions that members of Canada's Gay community have made to every segment of our society are worth celebrating. 

Like any other community, Gays represent a variety of individuals with a countless range of perspectives, and as is the goal of other civil rights fights, the outcome should be the right to be treated like everyone else. 

Queers Against Israeli Apartheid?
Next year,
consider joining Queers Against Tim Hortons

Pride, at least in Toronto, isn't about equality. It's about special interests hijacking a movement. At the Pride parade last Sunday, to be sure, there were groups from banks, theatre shows, unions, and a variety of credible organizations.

But there were also groups of depraved sado-masochists wearing nothing but the piercings in their genitalia or the occasional leather mask making them look like "the gimp" from Pulp Fiction. There were lunatic "intactivist" anti-circumcision fanatics whose appearance  suggested a recent escape from a mental institution,  a "polyamoury" group whose members were hideous-looking enough to discourage sexual relationships of any sort, and that is to say nothing of the imbecilic political losers like the perennial outcasts of Queers Against Israeli Apartheid, the NDP Socialist Caucus, Canada's Maoists, and the Communist Party of Canada. None of these parasitical misfits are representative of the achievements of Canada's Gay community. What they accomplish is to debase what should be a celebration of a great victory of rights into a disgraceful display of narcissism and self-indulgence, arming homophobes with more of the stereotypes that the Gay community has been trying to overcome for half a century. 

Oh, great! Someone brought an 11 year old girl (in pink)
to spend time with some naked perverts.
Yup..those Intactivists are complete sane!

The lesson here is obvious. It's time for the real Gay community to take back its Pride. The festival is run by a self-interested clique with the mentality of spoiled adolescents. The St. Patrick's Day Parade doesn't feature a contingent of nude Irish porn stars acting out sex scenes, or Irish Maoists, or a group of "Irish against Jews."  It's time for Toronto's Pride to grow up and own the confidence to stop giving the lunatic fringe a claim on the mainstream in what is supposed to be a celebration of Gay culture.

The Gay community in Canada has so much to be proud of, from athletes like Mark Tewksbury, to wonderful authors like Timothy Findley and musicians like kd lang, and politicians like Ian Scott and Scott Brison, social activists like Martin Gladstone, journalists like Sue Ann Levy and on and on. As it stands, Toronto's festival doesn't show Gay pride so much as the worst aspects of Gay society. Being at Pride this year I was reminded of the old joke: "what sort of people go to nudist colonies?..The sort of people who shouldn't go to nudist colonies."

Is this what the Gay community wants to be known as being "proud" of?

Gays have every right to be proud, but for that pride to reach its true potential,  the next fight for Gay rights  may have to be within the Gay community itself. 

More pics of what Pride shouldn't be here and here.






All photos in this post © 2012 Eye on a Crazy Planet