Sydney Mardi Gras sponsorship row: business practice anti-community?
A row over a sponsorship deal of the Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras has erupted after a lesbian dating website The Pink Sofa accused organisers and Gaydar, an international dating web site, for locking rival online groups out of the Mardi Gras parade on March 3 and the festival's Fair Day on February 18.
According to a report in the Sydney Morning Herald, Liz James from The Pink Sofa said that her members have been refused permission to take part in the parade and have been rejected from the Fair Day, despite having a stall there for the last six years.
New Mardi Gras, the organisation that was formed to run the 29-year-old festival after the previous company went into receivership in March 2002, confirmed the commercial agreement with Gaydar prevented The Pink Sofa being involved in Fair Day and the parade.
James warned that the inclusive spirit of the event has been betrayed by organisers who are forsaking the community ethos the festival was meant to represent.
"I believe Mardi Gras is a celebration of everybody, but this business practice is anti-community.
"Mardi Gras is a community event, it's all about inclusion, but this excludes people from the community. It doesn't belong to anyone in particular; it belongs to all gays and lesbians.
She add, "If they continue with this practice they have lost touch with the community and what the event is all about."
Her argument is dismissed by Mardi Gras chairman Marcus Bourget who countered that the festival does not exclude any individuals only competing commercial organisations such as the for-profit company James' operates.
Bourget explained that the event with an annual turnover of A$3 million is a business which needs sponsors to survive like any other commercial event.
"If not for our sponsors there would be no Mardi Gras. We have to provide a fair deal for our sponsors."
Gaydar's involvement as the event's first presenting sponsor last year turned a 2004-05 loss into a A$150,000 (US$115,560) profit for 2005-6.
According to the Herald, organisers had reversed their initial decision to leave out state tourism boards from Queensland and Tasmania at Fair Day due to an agreement with Tourism NSW. The move follows intervention from Vincent Cooper of the International Gay and Lesbian Tourism Association who said commercial exclusion was not appropriate for Mardi Gras.
"They need to be a little more sensitive when signing up these sponsorship agreements," Cooper said. "I can understand if Ford sponsored it and Toyota wanted to be involved, but when they exclude gay and lesbian businesses like Pink Sofa, it's just not on."
The month-long Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras festival begins this Saturday, Feb 3 and will culminate in a spectacular street parade and party on Mar 3. For more information, visit www.mardigras.org.au.
Aussie Govt Considers S10 million HIV Campaign to target gay men
The Australian federal government is considering a plan for a new A$10 million (US7.7 million) sexual health campaign to run over four years to combat a spike in HIV infection rates among gay men.
"It seems that the people susceptible to HIV infection are male homosexuals, so what the committee is recommending is a new national... to try to ensure that people don't do the sorts of things which might lead to HIV infection, or certainly don't do them without taking appropriate safety precautions," Health Minister Tony Abbott said on ABC radio.
"We need a new marketing effort in this area, but I don't think it should be another Grim Reaper campaign," Abbott said referring the Grim Reaper ad campaign launched 18 years ago in Australia which critics say was pivotal in changing heterosexual behaviour but had the unintended effect of demonising gay men.
"The Wooldridge committee speculates that in a sense we might be a victim of our own success because we now have these anti-viral drugs which are much more effective at preventing the progression of HIV," he said.
"This is speculation. Let's, as far as is humanly possible, try to get down to the nitty gritty of why this is happening and get this campaign going in as carefully targeted a way as possible."
"It's about getting the necessary information to people who need it the most," he said. "What we need is responsible behaviour."
Agreeing with Abbott that the new campaign would not be using fear as a motivation, Dr Wooldridge said, "Clearly there is a whole younger generation who are missing the message, combined with safe sex fatigue from men in their 30s who are not seeing the threat [of HIV]."
No exemption for Catholic adoption agencies from anti-discrimination laws
Adoption agencies run by the Roman Catholic Church in Britain must comply with non-discrimination laws, that is, to be willing to consider gay couples as prospective parents by the end of 2008 or lose all access to public funds, Prime Minister Tony Blair announced Monday.
Although adoption agencies had warned they would close rather than place children with gay couples, Blair said he hoped the decision would be seen as a sensible compromise. The announcement gives the Catholic church in effect a 20-month grace period to prepare and monitor existing placements before decisions are taken on whether to close their agencies rather than cooperate with gay people.
"There is no place in our society for discrimination. That's why I support the right of gay couples to apply to adopt like any other couple.
"And that way there can be no exemptions for faith-based adoption agencies offering public funded services from regulations that prevent discrimination."
Gay parades "satanic," says Moscow Mayor
Gay rights activists in Moscow declared that they would defy a city ban after Moscow's mayor Yury Luzhkov vowed on Monday never to allow a gay rights parade in the city, calling gay pride events events "satanic," according to Russian news agencies.
Organisers of last year's march have reportedly filed a suit at the European Court of Human Rights against Russia for banning last year's march, demanding 20,000 euros (US$25,880) compensation, Interfax news agency reported.
Calling gay pride parades "satanic act(s)," the 70-year-old Mayor was quoting by Interfax as saying, "We did not let the parade take place then, and we are not going to allow it in the future."
"Last year, Moscow came under unprecedented pressure to sanction the gay parade, which can be described in no other way than as satanic," he said to applause in comments broadcast on a city-controlled TV channel. He was speaking at a Kremlin event attended by the head of the Russian Orthodox Church.
He also charged that Western countries were facing a crisis of religious faith and were corrupting children.
"Some European nations bless single-sex marriages and introduce sexual guides in schools. Such things are a deadly moral poison for children," he was quoted as saying.
Meanwhile, Russian gay activists said they were challenging the city's ban of their parade in an appeal to the European Court for Human Rights, and pledged to hold a similar march in late May.
Homosexual acts between consenting males were decriminalised in 1993. In May 2006, riot police were called in to break up the clash between gay rights supporters and protestors resulting in the arrest of some 50 marchers and 20 protestors after activists tried to hold the city's first gay rights rally, despite a ban on the event.
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