Animal Liberation NSW, whose 2006 float was nominated “most creative,” was shunned from this year’s gay Mardi Gras in Sydney by organizers. Who wanted it more fagged up. Says a spokeswoman: “The subsequent feedback was that our entry didn’t fit the criteria of being queer orientated, so we changed the name to Sydney Queers for Animal Rights, but [again] they rejected us. … We’re really, really disappointed. In fact, I’m just gobsmacked.” [SX]
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Other Libertarian
Animal Rights groups are for the most part, fanatical. It’s one thing if you decide you want to be vegan/vegetarian. Nobody is stopping you, knock yourselves out. Indeed many of us also agree that meat consumption should be far lower for the average person than it is.
That said, the Animal Liberation Front is a terrorist organization that has blown up animal testing facilities, and throw red paint on celebrities. These are people whose leaders talked about bombs and terrorist acts. Why in the world should they be treated as legitimate voices for LGBT???
If you want more people to turn to veganism perhaps you should hire a marketing director because your current campaigns are worthless, scary, and downright turn-off to most people. Besides, if a bear is eating an otter should that bear be scolded with videos of otters having their fangs removed? Think people!
Lady Ga-Gasp
Larger pride parades are too often loaded with floats that have nothing to do with gay pride, and are often stocked with straight people who just like the attention of being on a float. Good for them for putting that practice to an end, if only on one group.
j
Hahah, what a ridiculous fallacy, to make the human/x (x being any other animal you can think you) comparison. To suggest that we are just as dependent on meat for survival as any other animal in the wild, which I may add, only eats for its survival (which is more than I can say for most americans) is ridiculous. Also, to suggest that all vegetarians or vegans are “teachers” who “scold” and “punish” you naughty meat eaters with messy videos of animal cruelty is also ridiculous. Most of us, frankly, couldn’t give a damn about your lack of compassion. That said, what you’ve wrote about the ALF is absolutely correct and the vast majority of us condemn them in the strongest terms. If you bombed every person involved in the animal trade you’d have very little people to “scold” now, would you? 😛
Robert
Other Libertarian: “Animal Rights groups are for the most part, fanatical.”
It’s easy to make glib, broad statements like that; it’s also not very useful for discussion. Here’s a list of animal rights groups: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animal_rights_groups. I challenge you to identify the “fanatical” aspects of “most” of these groups. My understanding of fanatical centers on the use of violent and militant tactics — in which case, few of these organizations would qualify. But perhaps your definition of fanatical is simply holding the notion that animals should be treated as a co-equal species in our complex biosphere instead of property to which we are entitled.
Also, the Animal Liberation Front is not the same as Animal Liberation NSW (the organization that wants a float in the parade). Two entirely separate organizations.
Back to a more relevant topic: I’m happy to know that Sydney organizers are open to exploring the intersection of different rights movements, as evidenced by including Animal Liberation NSW in prior years. I don’t know the specifics about their float, but I would say that a queer-oriented parade is about bringing together various subsets of queers — which ostensibly includes ALNSW: “Stoner said the vast majority of the participants who had signed up for the float were, in fact, queer” [from the linked article].
jason
What does “queer” actually mean? Is it some politically correct term inserted by some chicken-legged gay elite in the Mardi Gras organization? Seems like it.
Maybe the Sydney Mardi Gras needs to stop being control freaks and all-round retards.
jason
Robert,
Stop insisting on the word “queer”. I am NOT queer. If you are queer, you’re more than welcome to use the word.
brian
Sydney is a hole and a dive. The Mardi Gras parade is shit.
Robert
Jason, I wasn’t insisting on it. I use it as a catch-all in situations that demand more than just “gay” — which is, itself, a limited term since it may or may not include lesbians, bisexuals, transgendered and does not include straight (even though allies are welcomed to participate in pride celebrations). See how much space I saved by using queer? It was a matter of brevity.
But even if you take out my use of queer and replace it with a long acronym, my point still stands.
Derek
Jason you seem pretty fucking queer to me pal.
Katrina Fox
Check this article for more detail about the decision to exclude queer animal rights activists from the float:
http://www.thescavenger.net/glbsgdq/queer-animal-rights-activists-excluded-from-mardi-gras-parade.html
Secondly, the ALF do NOT blow anything up. They use incendiary devices to cause economic sabotage to animal abusers who terrorise non-humans. See this article for interview with an ALF activist. Please read it before you spread the usual mainstream media bias about the ALF.
http://www.thescavenger.net/animals/terrorists-or-freedom-fighters.html
And the animal lib group in Sydney is a bunch of queers (and allies) – 80% of the float is gay, lesbian, bisexual, sex/gender diverse, queer identified – who want to dance around in a bunch of yellow tutus. Can you get any more gay than that???
George
Robert – “gay” totally includes lesbians… I mean, really. I find catch-all words or the alphabet soup just as offensive as being left out of the sentence altogether!
Mike
“Secondly, the ALF do NOT blow anything up. They use incendiary devices to cause economic sabotage to animal abusers who terrorise non-humans.”
Isn’t that just pussyfooted Queen’s English for “we don’t blow shit up, we blow shit up GOOD”?
yeahandalso
Good! I really do not care for groups that try and take the attention away from GLBT orgs at GLBT events. Animal right has nothing to do with gay pride or the issues that effect the community.
I don’t have a problem with people using the word queer to describe themselves, but I do find that the people who do so tend to be irritating, especially those who identify as queer and are heterosexual. In the advocacy work I’ve done I found the “queer identified” people more interested in shocking the mainstream than trying to advance the issues of the glbt community
Other Libertarian
@Robert: For fucks sake are you serious?!?!?!
This is why LGBT activists are not taken seriously. We’re so open to letting just anybody on board that we come off as a joke.
Animal Rights groups have committed terrorist acts. Its not a lie. I was verbally assaulted on FB by a member of one of these organizations for talking about my dinner recipe on a Facebook status. That is how fanatical some of these people are.
If you want to support the cause as an LGBT ally, thank you… but don’t fucking expect all gay people to be vegan or vegetarian. That kind of thinking is disrespectful and hijacks a civil rights movement to meet some agenda that is not in line with civil rights AT ALL!
Steve
@Other Libertarian:
Animal Liberation NSW has no connection to the Animal Liberation Front. Which, despite what right-wing idealogues would have you believe, is NOT a terrorist organization.