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Highland Pride


Kingsmills

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I see, according to the Courier, that hundreds of people have signed a petition protesting against the proposed first Inverness Gay Pride parade.

I would be interested to hear from any of them just what they find so objectionable about people celebrating diversity in a colourful and entertaining way without causing any harm to anyone else whatsoever.

I am deeply ashamed of some of my fellow Invernesdians. I trust, however, that it is only a minority and that the vast majority will turn out to support the event and join the fun which will, after all, generate thousands of pounds, whether pink or otherwise, for local businesses.

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Good grief ... what century is this man living in !! Time to get the rainbow emojis out !! 

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Mr Morrison, claimed in gay marches elsewhere members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community flaunted their immorality in the most extravagant ways imaginable.  "This becomes evident especially in city centres when they thrust lewdness in the faces of men, women and children alike by frolicking unashamedly on rainbow-coloured floats making obscene sexual gestures ... If this unsavoury event is given planning permission then these desperately sad scenes are now likely to be witnessed very tragically in Inverness on October 6."

 

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I'm likely going to get pelters for this...but I am copying a FB post I made on a share of the petition in support of the March (but here I have broken it up into paragraphs)  .....

I genuinely don't see the point or necessity in  marches celebrating difference in a country in which acceptance of difference is enshrined in law, whether that difference is racial, gender-based, religious or anything else.

Marches are for protests against Government policies in an effort to influence them and should take place where the Government is.

What is the point of marches in any random town just to say we are what we are and we are proud of it....what next after Gay Pride and OO sectarian pride ...feminist pride marches, heterosexual pride marches, Muslim pride marches, Wee Free pride marches, Polish pride marches?

In your face and celebrating doesn't do anything for general acceptance, but creates polarised division...if independence and OO marches, have taught us nothing else, they have taught us that.

In a progressive society people wouldn't feel the need to celebrate their differences because their differences wouldn't matter....and no amount of marching is going to change the minds of people who think differences are not acceptable or change the minds of anyone who thinks they are entitled to walk the streets in their home town without being inconvenienced by people marching to stroke their own egos.

 

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1 hour ago, Kingsmills said:

I would respond to that by saying that, if it's not for you, you don't have to attend or participate but that is no reason for trying to ban those who do.

As I asked in my original post, where is the harm ? robylad has got it spit on. Live and let live.

No harm, I suppose...... if you aren't shopping or trying to get through Inverness  in a car...but what exactly is the POINT? What do marches achieve of use or ornament?   If they want to have a gathering of LBGT people and their supporters...aren't there parks where they can congregate without marching through the town?  Although I did go on the indy march in Inverness, because I felt obliged to, given it was so near me, I can't see the point in indy marches either. Getting together in one place as a group, as the indy march did  at Castle Heather, does more to keep up spirits and keep people involved in the movement, than parading through the streets hoping for media attention, and in the meantime irritating all the folk on the street who are either anti, couldn't give a toss, just want to get to the shops without having to push through crowds on the pavement,  or having to detour past the march to get from one side of the street to the other.   

 

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3 hours ago, Oddquine said:

No harm, I suppose...... if you aren't shopping or trying to get through Inverness  in a car...but what exactly is the POINT? What do marches achieve of use or ornament?   If they want to have a gathering of LBGT people and their supporters...aren't there parks where they can congregate without marching through the town?  Although I did go on the indy march in Inverness, because I felt obliged to, given it was so near me, I can't see the point in indy marches either. Getting together in one place as a group, as the indy march did  at Castle Heather, does more to keep up spirits and keep people involved in the movement, than parading through the streets hoping for media attention, and in the meantime irritating all the folk on the street who are either anti, couldn't give a toss, just want to get to the shops without having to push through crowds on the pavement,  or having to detour past the march to get from one side of the street to the other.   

 

We're you equally opposed to the recent independence parade through Inverness which probably had five times as many people as are likely to participate in Gay Pride ?

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Oddquine, as someone else who attended the Indy march, I thought the idea was to let people know that we aren't going away. No matter how much certain sections of the public would like the independence  question to go away, it isn't going to happen. Perhaps the lgbt community feel people like Mr. Morrison needs to understand that no matter his feelings,  they're  not going away. He and the folk that agree with him need to get used to it.

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4 hours ago, Kingsmills said:

We're you equally opposed to the recent independence parade through Inverness which probably had five times as many people as are likely to participate in Gay Pride ?

I did say Although I did go on the indy march in Inverness, because I felt obliged to, given it was so near me, I can't see the point in indy marches either. Getting together in one place as a group, as the indy march did  at Castle Heather, does more to keep up spirits and keep people involved in the movement, than parading through the streets hoping for media attention, and in the meantime irritating all the folk on the street who are either anti, couldn't give a toss, just want to get to the shops without having to push through crowds on the pavement,  or having to detour past the march to get from one side of the street to the other.    That one was my first and last.

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3 hours ago, robbylad said:

Oddquine, as someone else who attended the Indy march, I thought the idea was to let people know that we aren't going away. No matter how much certain sections of the public would like the independence  question to go away, it isn't going to happen. Perhaps the lgbt community feel people like Mr. Morrison needs to understand that no matter his feelings,  they're  not going away. He and the folk that agree with him need to get used to it.

Does anybody really think we are going away?  Honestly?   And truthfully, does anybody looking on as we march think to themselves...well if all those folk think independence is a good thing, maybe I should change my mind and join them...and vote YES next time. The people marching would have been much better and more productively  used leafleting Inverness.  If the politicians  really thought we were going away, why would they keep on harping about no indyref2 any time a microphone is waved in front of their faces? 

A march on the lines of the indy ones, the LBGT ones or the OO ones are completely pointless and are no more than an ego-massaging exercise. We  all know that the pro-indy people exist and have done since the date of the Treaty of Union...we all know that LBGT people exist probably since the time of the ancient Greeks and Romans, and we all know that the OO exists (though I've never understood why)...why do they need to march to rub everyone's faces in 2018, in the fact that they aren't quite the same as the majority....given we all KNOW that...the equality act tells us that, if nothing else does?

I never meet people and introduce myself by citing my political leanings, my religion(or lack of it) or my sexuality...but I have met people who proclaim, as they shake my hand, that they are born-again Christian, or when being driven by a mutual friend, and sharing the back seat of a car for a few miles, telling me, appropos of nothing at all, that they are gay, or relations telling me that they voted NO in 2014 (and after I had been at pains not to talk politics at them, because I knew it would be a waste of time and lead to arguments) and I wonder what is it about people that they think anybody but them gives a toss about how they define themselves.  

The FB petition post to which I originally responded talked about Scotland being a progressive country and  marches were a sign of that.....but  marches for no obvious reason, bar they are allowed, are anything BUT a sign of a progressive country......a progressive country doesn't need marches just because some needy groups want and think they deserve attention and/or advantages more than any other group ....because in a  progressive country everyone is equal under the law, nobody should care what sex/religion/political outlook etc anybody has and no religion/political outlook/sexuality is more worthy of approval/diapproval than any other.

Ergo....as long as we allow LBGT marches, OO marches and pro-indy marches to disrupt communities at public taxpayer cost...where DO you draw the line, because going by the nuimber of days in a year allocated to remembering this event or that disadvantaged group or the next sufferer from this that or the other, we could fill our whole year with costly to the taxpayer, ego-massaging marches...and for what, exactly?

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7 hours ago, robbylad said:

Can't really comment regarding lgbt or oo,  but if the media and pro union supporters keep telling me there's  no appetite for independence, I'm going to challenge that at  every opportunity. 

But marches don't show there is an appetite for indy...they just show there is an appetite for indy by some people, who bus in from all over to swell the crowds in one particular place at one particular time.  Polls are a better indication if there is an appetite for indy, because they don't double count the people who turn up at every march.

People coming into in the  YES shop I worked in in 2014 were getting all excited at the numbers of people who were members of pro-indy FB Groups ...and were convinced  that  we were going to win based on adding up the hundreds, thousands/hundreds of thousands  who had liked pro-indy pages/joined pro-indy groups. I disagreed...because I knew I was being counted twenty or more times in those pages/groups...and I was sure I wasn't the only one, going by the numbers of my FB friends who were members of the same groups/following the same pages.  .

Pro-indy marches are for pro-indy people to make them feel they are doing something in the long hiatus beween 2014 and whenever the next referendum takes place. I'd have thought a better  way of  showing the appetite for independence would have been NOT disbanding all the YES groups on the ground post 2014, and a periodic lower key continuation of appropriate leafleting as a drip-drip counteraction to the drip-drip of media propaganda..even if it was only the Chris Cairns "driving instructor " cartoon shoved through doors  after every annual GERS production as the media is going ballistic  about the Scottish deficit.    

 

 

 

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So Oddquine, as I thought, you took part in a parade which caused at least as much disruption as the one proposed but you do not care for the LGBT community having the same privilege.

Are you entirely sure that it's the inconvenience and disruption you object to ?

I don't much care for the kirking of the council parade which causes some disruption and in which Inverness civic society pays homage to a supposed deity in which incressingly few of us believe but I would not object to those who have that rather bizarre belief celebrating it publicly as they do.

As I said before, if it's not for you, don't go but don't invent spurious grounds for objection either.

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4 hours ago, Kingsmills said:

So Oddquine, as I thought, you took part in a parade which caused at least as much disruption as the one proposed but you do not care for the LGBT community having the same privilege.

Are you entirely sure that it's the inconvenience and disruption you object to ?

I don't much care for the kirking of the council parade which causes some disruption and in which Inverness civic society pays homage to a supposed deity in which incressingly few of us believe but I would not object to those who have that rather bizarre belief celebrating it publicly as they do.

As I said before, if it's not for you, don't go but don't invent spurious grounds for objection either.

Tbh,  I didn't actually think about pro-indy marches  in that light until I took part in one...but  I have always been against the OO kind of pointless marches, and  it doesn't seem to me that the pro-indy ones are any less pointless, in the great scheme of changing attitudes, just by our presence....in fact is as likely to polarise attitudes than change them.

The kirking of the council is a modern continuation of a historical event, attended by those of any and no religion, nowadays AND it's on a Sunday mid-morning, so less people about to disrupt.

But maybe you can tell me what the point of the LGBT march is....I might change my mind if there is a point to it.   I kinda get the impression with your  Are you entirely sure that it's the inconvenience and disruption you object to ?  that you are insinuating that maybe I'm homophobic. I'm not, btw, but I would say that, wouldn't I?   I don't dislike anybody because of how they define themselves , I do dislike people, however they define themselves, if they give me good reason to dislike them, but I don't extrapolate that dislike to all those who define themselves in the same way.   I always thought that's what normal people did.

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1 hour ago, Oddquine said:

But maybe you can tell me what the point of the LGBT march is....I might change my mind if there is a point to it.   

Living over here we dont have a single Pride march, its a week long event culminating with the Dyke March on a Saturday and the main Pride Parade on the Sunday. Both of these close down many of the busiest city streets in Toronto but its not a problem ... Toronto also hosted World Pride in 2014 and that was even bigger ! 

According to the first link I posted from HuffPost, the roots are as a protest back in the 70s when being gay was a crime in many more places than it (still) is now, and where sexuality had to be hidden. Nowadays, it is more of a celebration where people are happy they can express themselves how they wish, as well as perhaps protest or raise awareness of some of the issues that still exist within the community. Most of us may have the common sense to say live and let live without prejudice to race, gender, sexuality or religion but unfortunately there are still people like Mr Morrison around and whether people like him like it or not, the world has moved on from his very insular and parochial viewpoint (which also saw him mentioned in a blog post opposing the appointment of female ministers).

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/charlene-obernauer/whats-the-point-of-pride-marches_b_3462807.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pride_parade

https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/lgbtq-pride-parade-6-things-you-need-understand-you-participate-63141

 

 

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Thought long and hard before replying to your post, Scotty....but it isn't  doing it for me........there is as little point to a celebratory week as there is to a celebratory march.

I don't think celebrating being gay warrants a march or parade any more than being heterosexual warrants a march or parade.  If people want to be treated like everybody else, they don't march to celebrate being different to everybody else, imo. 

The protest marches I understood....the"look at me I'm gay" marches I just don't.....any more than I understand the reasoning behind the OO type sectarian marches in Glasgow....or Inverness....or anywhere else over something that happened over three centuries ago.  

I often wondered, the only year I attended the Bannockburn rally, back in the day, what the reaction would be if there was a Culloden March and rally every year organised by a Scottish-based English group to celebrate beating the clans and subduing the Highlands. 

 

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Thank goodness for neutrality, I say.

In Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada there is a LGBt parade down the main street downtown once per year. It's a really gay event (using the correct meaning of the original word) and accompanying the parade is a band and countless streamers, people in all kinds of costumes etc  , etc.

Frankly,  this parade has become a must see for a lots of folk and , if I did not live quite a long way out of town myself, I would  not mind going downtown to see all the colour,. pomp and incredible costumes. Apparently it's something else. And thousands of people attend every year, packing the sidewalks --- the pavements for youse yins.

Apart from our Indigenous peoples, Canada is a place  where everybody has come from somewhere , or are the descendants of immigrants in the past and most smart people view a "newbie" as someone of interest and with whom to easily strike up a conversation. If you are really interested in people and could not care less about where they come from you will get along and do just fine in this very large country..

Before he sold his home one of my friends was a huge black guy named Anthony and he was a person of simple manners but smart enough to have been able to buy two houses since his arrival in Canada.  We often had great chats and I found him to be engaging and interesting. I think that in Africa people have open doors all day because he thought nothing of walking in my front door, coming up the stairs and walking into one of our bedrooms where he heard conversations going on. Now THAT brought a smile to my so - called sophisticated visage .

Prejudices seem to fade as time goes along and so whether you are black, white, pink or kaki is of no concern to me . What matters is that you try to get along.

So, personally, curiosity about the LGBT parade is the main feeling I have at this time. It's such a huge event here in Vancouver , annually, that everybody (including businesses)  seems to benefit from it and, seemingly,  everybody goes downtown just to have a good time and be goggle- eyed at looking at the variety of costumes, colour and bands etc. - - oh, and it's not just about gay people , many other groups join in and participate. Meaning? Well, from my point of view it's ….wait for it.....about accepting people for what they are without them being stereotyped, put-down, hurt or shunned. In the Deep South of America  prejudice against black folk still remains but the majority of people in America  proper are sane enough to get along with everybody else, regardless of colour or creed.

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42 minutes ago, Scarlet Pimple said:

Well, from my point of view it's ….wait for it.....about accepting people for what they are without them being stereotyped, put-down, hurt or shunned. In the Deep South of America  prejudice against black folk still remains but the majority of people in America  proper are sane enough to get along with everybody else, regardless of colour or creed.

But aren't the LBGT community deliberately stereotyping themselves by having gay marches?  Are they not just human beings like all the rest of us, despite sexual orientation.or in other cases, race, religion, political leanings etc?  Why do we need to celebrate diversity when it is a fact of life and, in a global society, quite unremarkable as far as the majority are concerned?

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6 hours ago, Oddquine said:

I don't think celebrating being gay warrants a march or parade any more than being heterosexual warrants a march or parade.  If people want to be treated like everybody else, they don't march to celebrate being different to everybody else, imo. 

Thats exactly the point though ... The community are not celebrating the fact they are LGBTQ, they are celebrating the fact that in modern times they are now allowed to be LGBTQ publicly without having to hide their true selves or expect to be treated differently. This has not always been - and in some places still is not - the case.  As for the heterosexual population ... I dont think we have been persecuted for being straight so the comparison about marches is not really relevant. 

 

 

 

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2 hours ago, Scotty said:

Thats exactly the point though ... The community are not celebrating the fact they are LGBTQ, they are celebrating the fact that in modern times they are now allowed to be LGBTQ publicly without having to hide their true selves or expect to be treated differently. This has not always been - and in some places still is not - the case.  As for the heterosexual population ... I dont think we have been persecuted for being straight so the comparison about marches is not really relevant. 

 

 

 

You beat me to it. Almost word for word what I was going to post.

Edited by Kingsmills
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Oddquine. I have a feeling that in due course other folks who also want to parade will also join the group -- not to draw attention to themselves as exclusive human beings but just for the gaiety and fun of it all.

More bands will be attracted and want to march as well and it will simply turn into a festival of diversity, colour and congeniality relating to the  different aspects of the human race. A merging of minds, moods and maybe general monkeying around like people in olden days used to dance round the maypole.

Sounds like  a lot of fun to me...….

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  • 3 weeks later...

I liked the banner which mocked the Christian reactionaries with the message "Non-judgement day is coming"!  

It's a shame the march couldn't have ended at TCS.  This would have challenged the ingrained homophobia in football  and allowed us to rightfully claim the "Pride of the HighlandS" epithet again.

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