Gay Pride Parade

wonderfullife wrote: »

So you are arguing verbal or physical abuse over an accent is not a fair comparison to verbal and physical abuse over ones sexuality?

Persecution is persecution, full stop. Whether it's for being fat, gay, tiny , black or your accent. It's not right to single out being gay as worse than any other reason narrow minded thugs will persecute people for.

Fair point. The pride parade wasnt about persecution though, was it?

Thread, meet blind alley. Blind alley, say hello to thread.

as someone whos just really coming to terms with who he is in the past 12 months I attended pride yesterday, i wasnt going to go until i ran into a friend at the last minute who said they were going so i asked to tag along, ive always sort of concieved the gay scene as somthing i wouldnt enjoy and "too camp" went in my normal clothes and for the most part didnt act too differently than i normally would

I arrived onto o connell street and joined in one of the floats as it passed, the craic begun almost straight away, met up with some more friends who i went to school with but never really gelled with, marched away to merrion then, straight in and most of us danced away at the street party, made some more new friends, hung around for a while then between mother and the frontloungue and a couple of other places before queuing to get into the george until 12 and caught my last bus.


honestly had a great time and ive probably been the most comfortable ive ever been about who i am, and a lot of misconceptions were proven wrong. so with that i think yes, pride does have a reason and im so glad i attended it

Wompa1 wrote: »

What about other groups? I remember two Americans getting beat to sh1t in Castlebar when I lived there because of their accents.

What about people with Ginger hair?

How about Nigerians and Travellers?

How about short people, fat people, religious people?

There's closed minded people about all kinds of groups of people, not just gay people. It doesn't mean it's right but it's not a cross that they carry alone.

Where is anyone gay or otherwise laying exclusive claim to abuse,victimisation or discrimination?

Gingers are indeed much maligned and unfortunate as they do not have any special status with respect to discrimination.
There are most likely individual cases where people have been bullied and that is categorically wrong. Does ginger bashing continue into adulthood ? If so there are worse assholes out there than a thought. In any case gingers have all of the same rights as non-gingers - lesbian,gay and transgender people do not

We have a blasphemy law which protects religious people from discrimination / abuse
In addition religious parades are not only tolerated but actively supported
The Corpus Christi procession can go wherever they want - in Dublin they chose to hold the procession in Drumcondra. In Cork it was through the city centre resulting in road closures, traffics diversions and Garda resources being utilised

Nigerians have equal legal rights with the exception of asylum seekers but in terms of discrimination / racism aimed at Nigerians is an offence
Africa Day celebrates African culture including Nigerian and is supported by the office for integration, local government and a number of community groups

Travellers also have the same rights as settled people and discrimination laws specific to them - whether these are enforced is another matter but they do exist

So too does Traveller Pride week - this is supported by traveller groups and council / local government groups.
It doesn't get much support, media attention or interest from anyone outside of the travelling community. Pride has developed a lot over the years to become what it is today. Many large companies have their own pride groups plus there are a lot of other commercial groups interested in developing the relationship with Pride. Traveller Pride is probably a harder sell tbh

Short people and fat people have the same rights as everyone else. They may experience bullying but they are not discriminated against by law
If they do experience bullying or harassment they can pursue this legally as far as I know.

If there is ever a time where there is a short/ fat/ ginger pride parade I've no issue with that either. Maybe we can find some short fat ginger gay travellers to organise the mother of all parades

Of course gingers are picked on, and rightly so. They don't have souls.

Henlars67 wrote: »

I believe in equality, and a group of people who aren't treated as equal holding a parade which says "we're different" does bother me.

The parade happens for a few hours once a year. It's a small window for gay people to get out on the streets to say that they have PRIDE in who they are before they go back to the other 364 and a half days of the year when they are subjected to the most appalling treatment in their ordinary lives from not all, but a significant portion of society.

You are bothered by this ?.......let me get out the violin for you !!! :rolleyes:

Femme_Fatale wrote: »

No they're not. They have it easy. Heterosexual white men have it way worse in their day-to-day lives - keep up!

I have it grand. What am I missing?!? Who's secretly oppressing me? Cease and desist! Immediately!

Nodin wrote: »

Women. Our bosom wielding oppressors have no mercy.

Why those sneaky no good low down lovely cuddly......

Fire away girls! I'm oppressible!

DeeDee89 wrote: »

Yes and so it starts--- oh Lord!!

Started there a week ago. Where've you been?!?

I wonder how many of the people who couldn't see the point of it, or had independently drawn their own conclusions as to its purpose, actually attended Pride this year to see what it was about and what the participant's own views on its purpose were?