The premiere event for gay Philadelphia is the Equality Forum, a week-long series of conferences and events that occur each Spring focused on LGBT rights and history. Philly’s mayor, Michael Nutter has cut city funding for the event, which was around $115,000 or 13% of the annual budget of Equality Forum. Gays and lesbian leaders call the move “unfair”, but Nutter responds saying something like, “Hey! We have no money! Didn’t you hear it’s the End Times people? No money!”
In fairness to Nutter, he also sut city funding of the St. Patrick’s Day Parade and the Puerto Rican Day Festival and while he’s funding the city’s world famous Mummer’s Parade this year, funding goes off the table next year. Still, the lack of funds have sent Equality Forum organizers scrambling, according to Philly.com:
“When Mayor Nutter was elected, we felt like we finally had a seat at the table,” Lazin said. “Now we feel like that seat has been pulled out from under us.”…
The loss of the city’s $115,000 contribution – of which the forum was notified by letter last month – puts the organization in a difficult spot because it has committed money for speakers, venues and so forth.
“There are very few areas to cut,” Lazin said. “It means less promotion.”
Among the first things to go, he said, is the monthlong rainbow flag display on Broad Street.”
Michael G.
I am not that surprised at this news. The city is in a big financial mess. It is sad to see the funding loss. But if it means that our local libraries stay open, I can deal with it.
Powerbottom Philly
Have the organizers of Equality Forum thought about cutting Malcolm Lazin’s HUGE salary at all? That dude makes a huge salary. Funding was cut across the board – a lot of great evetns and festivals are not getting the cash. This is a desperate attempt at guilting Mayor Nutter into giving a hand-out.
Sebbe
Expected with the current financial disaster. Sad though since Philly is known for marketing for the pink dollar.
Darth Paul
“Nutter”…lol
DaveO
No, it means that they have to tell $115,000 worth of speakers, venues and so forth that their services won’t be required.
Sheesh.
Really Not
I beg to differ, but TLA’s Philly Gay & Lesbian Film Festival is by far and away more interesting and of interest to the community than that “forum.”
PJR
The city has cut funding for EVERYTHING in Philadelphia! Funding was in fact cut in half for the Mummer’s Parade as well – just not entirely because of the short notice (the Parade is on January 1st). In November of last year the Mayor announced there would be no more funding in 2009 for anything (including a bunch of libraries and fire stations). Why Malcolm thought that didn’t include him is beyond me. I have a feeling the “gays (sic) and lesbian leaders” you quote as calling the cuts “unfair” is actually just Malcolm Lazin trying to spin a very real budget crisis affecting all Philadelphians into some sort of homophobic act. As an aside, It’s a bit of a stretch to call Equality Forum “the premiere event for gay Philadelphia”, considering we also have Pride, Outfest, two film festivals, etc.
Brian Miller
Wait a minute. Equality Forum costs over $1 million to produce?!?!
Unreal.
I’ve been to national conventions for the Libertarian Party that have more attendees and cost less to produce than that.
Why not invite speakers who don’t charge an arm and a leg, open up participation to more people who don’t make a living off the speaking circuit, and get the budget down to a decent $300K or so?
Sebbe
@Brian Miller – What exactly is that? Like a Ron Paul convention? Just curious?
Brian Miller
Ron Paul? Yuck.
I said Libertarian, not Republican.
The LP, like the Democrats and Republicans, has a national convention every two years.
Like the Democrats and Republicans, it attracts thousands of people from around the country to caucus, revise platforms, and in presidential election years, nominate a candidate.
Unlike the Dems and Reps (and Equality Forum), it doesn’t spend taxpayer money to do it. I don’t see why the EF cannot operate the same way.
Sebbe
@Brian Miller – Oh sorry, Bob Barr, right? Wasn’t Ron Paul previously associated with the Libertarian party and their (your) nominee in 1988 (? not sure of the year) for president?
I actually do believe tax payer dollars should be spent, but that is besides the point.
If the culture wars were settled, the libertarians are actually worse than the republicans (IMO) in this day in age.
Your positions on wars are admirable I will say, that is about all I can personally agree with the party on, but I admire your dedication to that issue.
A proud pink socialist limousine liberal here.
Brian Miller
If the culture wars were settled, the libertarians are actually worse than the republicans (IMO) in this day in age.
Huh?
We’re better than the Democrats on gay rights, let alone the Republicans.
We’re the only unambiguously pro-marriage-equality national party in the country. We put it in our platform, along with calls for equal treatment in military service, adoption and taxation.
It’s true that Libertarians don’t typically support special privilege legislation, but speaking as a queer man myself, I’d much rather be EQUAL than “special.”
Sebbe
@Brian Miller – That why I mentioned the culture wars (if they weren’t an issue). To be honest, gay rights are not the only issue I am concerned with when I vote or support a political party and they certainly are not the number 1 issue. Important, just not number 1 for me, there are soooo many issues that the government needs to be dealing with.
KingofthePaupers
Jct: There’s nothing wrong with small denomination municipal or California State IOUs if anyone can pay their taxes with them. When Argentina’s government workers were faced with cuts, their unions talked 6 state governments into paying them with small-denomination state bonds which could be used to pay for state services and taxes by everyone.
When the local currency is pegged to the Time Standard of Money (how many dollars per unskilled hour child labor) Hours earned locally can be intertraded with other timebanks globally! In 1999, I paid for 39/40 nights in Europe with an IOU for a night back in Canada worth 5 Hours. U.N. Millennium Declaration UNILETS Resolution C6 to governments is for a time-based currency to restructure the global financial architecture.
See http://youtube.com/kingofthepaupers
Too bad California IOUs won’t be accepted in payment for state taxes and services like state bonds were in Argentina. Too bad California IOUs will be denominated too big to use as local currency. Too bad Argentina people were smart enough to avoid the tent-cities catastrophe and California people are too stupid to follow their example.
If they make IOUs legal tender, I’ll take back every joke I ever made about Girlieman Governor Musclehead if he engineers the California state currency lifeboat.
But Philadelphia has an Equal Dollars system that could save them so they might be even stupider.