Black Lives Matter failed to show respect at Pride parade
By Sue-Ann Levy, Toronto Sun
First posted: Sunday, July 03, 2016 09:30 PM EDT | Updated: Monday, July 04, 2016 01:22 AM EDT
They call themselves Black Lives Matter (Toronto) but at Sunday’s Pride parade they should have been called Nobody Else Matters.
The protesters that were selected as Pride’s honoured group this year — an act of political correctness gone mad — did nothing to respect that honour.
It certainly didn’t matter to them that while they parked their posteriors at the corner of Yonge and College Sts for a 30-minute protest — a tactic no doubt aimed at making the 6 p.m. news —- thousands of revellers and marchers in support of gay rights and gay pride were left to stand in the blazing heat waiting for the parade to recommence.
It wouldn’t have mattered to them that former Stephen Harper cabinet minister Lisa Raitt — who was squeezed into a small section of Bloor St. while waiting to march along with all of the 120 members of the LGBTory group — fainted in the heat. They made the news! Or that they put countless other elderly and disabled people at risk while they presented their list of demands to the Pride organizers. They made the news!
It didn’t seem to matter to this group that while, yes they did hijack the parade and the left-wing media ate it up, the parade just wasn’t the same as the afternoon wore on.
When our LGBTory group — which included acting Conservative leader Rona Ambrose, PC Ontario Leader Patrick Brown, MPP LISA McLeod and federal leadership candidates — finally set off at 5 p.m., it all seemed terribly anticlimactic.
We were withered and a good portion of the crowd had dispersed. Those onlookers left didn’t seem very gay at all.
If we want to talk about a group that has been marginalized, let’s talk about gay Conservatives. Can you imagine what the left-wing media would have done if our entire group sat down in the middle of Yonge and Bloor Sts. with a list of demands? I can guarantee the politically-correct Pride organizers would not have been tripping over themselves to negotiate with us, or to even give us the time of day. The police would have pulled us away in two minutes.
And what about those eight demands?
I’m not suggesting that BLM doesn’t have some legitimate issues with the police or some cause to be concerned. But to hold a parade hostage while they demanded that there be no more Toronto police providing security at the event, no more police floats in the parade or that Pride hires more of their members, struck me as downright self-serving.
Here I thought the Pride parade was about celebrating gay rights and gay pride — the rights of all gay people. I thought we were supposed to be marching in memory of the victims of the Orlando massacre. I wasn’t aware that it was about allowing one loud group to make a political statement.
I guess Pride’s organizers have not learned their lesson from the Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (QuAIA) fiasco of years gone by. They allowed QuAIA to hijack the parade for five years in the name of “free speech” — although we should be grateful for small mercies QuAIA never blocked an intersection and stopped the parade.
Now Pride’s organizers are allowing themselves to be bullied by BLM, whose members were tripping over themselves to say they won Sunday.
Won what? They embarrassed themselves on national TV, they made a mockery of the Pride organization and showed, yet again, that Pride has lost its way.
I can only imagine what group will block the parade next year with its own ultimatums.
SLevy@postmedia.com
Black Lives Matter failed to show respect at Pride parade | LEVY | Toronto & GTA
By Sue-Ann Levy, Toronto Sun
First posted: Sunday, July 03, 2016 09:30 PM EDT | Updated: Monday, July 04, 2016 01:22 AM EDT
They call themselves Black Lives Matter (Toronto) but at Sunday’s Pride parade they should have been called Nobody Else Matters.
The protesters that were selected as Pride’s honoured group this year — an act of political correctness gone mad — did nothing to respect that honour.
It certainly didn’t matter to them that while they parked their posteriors at the corner of Yonge and College Sts for a 30-minute protest — a tactic no doubt aimed at making the 6 p.m. news —- thousands of revellers and marchers in support of gay rights and gay pride were left to stand in the blazing heat waiting for the parade to recommence.
It wouldn’t have mattered to them that former Stephen Harper cabinet minister Lisa Raitt — who was squeezed into a small section of Bloor St. while waiting to march along with all of the 120 members of the LGBTory group — fainted in the heat. They made the news! Or that they put countless other elderly and disabled people at risk while they presented their list of demands to the Pride organizers. They made the news!
It didn’t seem to matter to this group that while, yes they did hijack the parade and the left-wing media ate it up, the parade just wasn’t the same as the afternoon wore on.
When our LGBTory group — which included acting Conservative leader Rona Ambrose, PC Ontario Leader Patrick Brown, MPP LISA McLeod and federal leadership candidates — finally set off at 5 p.m., it all seemed terribly anticlimactic.
We were withered and a good portion of the crowd had dispersed. Those onlookers left didn’t seem very gay at all.
If we want to talk about a group that has been marginalized, let’s talk about gay Conservatives. Can you imagine what the left-wing media would have done if our entire group sat down in the middle of Yonge and Bloor Sts. with a list of demands? I can guarantee the politically-correct Pride organizers would not have been tripping over themselves to negotiate with us, or to even give us the time of day. The police would have pulled us away in two minutes.
And what about those eight demands?
I’m not suggesting that BLM doesn’t have some legitimate issues with the police or some cause to be concerned. But to hold a parade hostage while they demanded that there be no more Toronto police providing security at the event, no more police floats in the parade or that Pride hires more of their members, struck me as downright self-serving.
Here I thought the Pride parade was about celebrating gay rights and gay pride — the rights of all gay people. I thought we were supposed to be marching in memory of the victims of the Orlando massacre. I wasn’t aware that it was about allowing one loud group to make a political statement.
I guess Pride’s organizers have not learned their lesson from the Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (QuAIA) fiasco of years gone by. They allowed QuAIA to hijack the parade for five years in the name of “free speech” — although we should be grateful for small mercies QuAIA never blocked an intersection and stopped the parade.
Now Pride’s organizers are allowing themselves to be bullied by BLM, whose members were tripping over themselves to say they won Sunday.
Won what? They embarrassed themselves on national TV, they made a mockery of the Pride organization and showed, yet again, that Pride has lost its way.
I can only imagine what group will block the parade next year with its own ultimatums.
SLevy@postmedia.com
Black Lives Matter failed to show respect at Pride parade | LEVY | Toronto & GTA
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