North west pride 2009

garth-marenghi

A RAINBOW will be painted through Sligo this weekend with the area having a gay old time at the community festival for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) people.
Since its creation in 2006 Northwest Pride has attracted support from politicians, community groups, businesses and the ordinary people of Sligo.
Una Foster, one of the organisers said that some people worried that Sligo just wasn’t ready for a gay pride event “but those of us who had experienced the enormous warmth of our friends and neighbours over the years knew it would be okay.”
The event is also for friends and neighbours of LGBT with parents and friends at last year’s event carrying banners saying: Straight But Not Narrow.
The festival kicks off on Thursday August 6 with the opening of an exhibition, Creating Spaces, at the Leitrim Sculpture Centre in Manorhamilton.
Sligo native Brian Finnegan, editor of Dublin-based national newspaper Gay Community News and a regular contributor to RTE programmes, will open the exhibition.
Sligo, according to some sources, has until now been the smallest town to boast its own LGBT pride festival but on Sunday, August 9, it will lose that distinction to another town in the county when the local Family Resource Centre in Easkey will hold a gay pride event. This will be followed by a Shoreside Barbecue.
Festival organiser Izzy O’Rourke told the Post that it is important for small rural areas to be involved in such events: “Northwest Pride is not just for LGBT people but for their families too and when you consider that up to 30 per cent of young suicides are by people who are confused about their gender, it’s very important that they are doing this.
“Young people may move from a rural area to an urban area and when they come out their parents are left dreadfully isolated in coming to terms with it.
“But this shows that they are not alone. We are all used to it, but we are not used to talking about it and that’s what we’re trying to change.”
Everyone who wants to celebrate the achievements of the local LGBT community is welcome to attend this, or any of the events. Full details are on www.nwprideireland.com. (http://www.sligopost.com/2009/08/05/sligo-prepares-for-gay-pride-carnival/)

Just came across this in the Sligo Post and thought it was an event worth flagging especially in light of some of the studies completed in relation to Homophobic Bullying at schools and rates of attempted suicide amongst Lesbian,Gay,Bio sexual and Transgender individuals (LGBT).

According to the group "Belong to", an organisation for LGBT people aged 14-23 there are approximately 20,000 LGBT students in Irish post primary schools most of whom have experienced Homophobic bullying. Its not acceptable that anyone (young or old) should be bullied and harrassed due to their sexual orientation.In my opinion Homophobia should be viewed and treated with the same contempt as racism, religious or any other form of discriminaton.
Here are a few relevant links
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/0703/1224249968769.html

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/teachers-accused-of-ignoring-homophobic-bullying-95515.html

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/0202/1232923382540.html

http://nwprideireland.com/EVENTS_BRIEF_new.htm

Xiney

Let's try this again.

MoonDancer

So it's not going to be in the town centre this year?
I enjoy it every year, I bring the kids too, they love it!

garth-marenghi

MoonDancer wrote: »

So it's not going to be in the town centre this year?
I enjoy it every year, I bring the kids too, they love it!

According to the website the parade is in Sligo (assembling at city hall at 1.45) on Saturday and there are other events like art exhibition, table quiz and beach bbq scattered around the region. Details in the northwest pride link i gave in previous post

darealtulip

MoonDancer wrote: »

I enjoy it every year, I bring the kids too, they love it!

So did our wee man last year.

MoonDancer

Ah ok, I somehow missed it!
Won't be able to make it Sat. pity!

darealtulip

How was it today, we couldn't make it:(.

garth-marenghi wrote: »

In my opinion Homophobia should be viewed and treated with the same contempt as racism, religious or any other form of discriminaton.
Here are a few relevant links

Couldn't help wondering:
Which religous groups/ churches were there to day to show their support? Since they (religious groups and churches) are the biggest source of the homophobic behaviour in the world.

Before people say it is a strange thing to ask, in Holland we have Cathlic priests standing up against the pope. Other churches show their support aswell on the gay pride parade in Holland.

I think that in the coservative North West it should be a good thing to have the support from a church.

JupiterKid

Great to hear the event went well.:cool: There are great pics of NW pride on the message boards I'm a moderator on Gaire:

Link:
http://www.gaire.com/e/b/article.asp?id=3238


The event also made the Irish-American media in the States. What's interesting to me are the homophobes in the Irish American community among the commentators being disgusted that Ireland has become accepting of gay rights.:rolleyes:

I say tho them: we've moved on and go stick your outdated notions of Ireland where the sun don't shine!:D

Now, the next step is for Sligo to open an LGBT resource centre and hopefully a gay bar.:)

darealtulip

JupiterKid wrote: »

I say tho them: we've moved on and go stick your outdated notions of Ireland where the sun don't shine!:D

Only ireland is going backwards again with the blasphemy law:mad:

http://blasphemy.ie/

starbelgrade

I don't believe in Dermot Ahern. Is that blasphemous?

darealtulip

starbelgrade wrote: »

I don't believe in Dermot Ahern. Is that blasphemous?

LOL probaly comes under that law too!