Today's decision by the ACT Parliament to allow civil ceremonies between same-sex couples places the spotlight on the Rudd Government's commitment to equality for gay and lesbian people.  Australia's Constitution provides the Federal Government with powers that enable it to overturn Territory Government decisions, giving the Prime Minister the final say over whether gay and lesbian Territorians will have access to the new laws.  Former Prime Minister John Howard intervened in 2006 to overturn the Stanhope Government's Civil Unions Act, which, like today's reforms, would have enabled same-sex couples to enter into civil unions.

The Rudd Government is to be commended for delivering 85 reforms for gay and lesbian people and the Labor Party is to be commended for being the only major party, at a State or Federal level, to have delivered reforms for gay and lesbian people.  However, until Federal Labor changes its policy of not allowing marriages (or civil unions, at least) between same-sex couples, their commitment to equality for gay and lesbian people will always be questioned.  There is no such thing as partial equality - we are either equal or we are not - and, as long as our governments deny us the same opportunities as straight people, they provide comfort to members of the public who seek to treat us differently.

I understand that many gay and lesbian people do not want to get married, but that is not the point.  Straight people who do not want to get married, at least have a choice.  We should have the same choice - otherwise we are not equal.

As Gavin blogged earlier today, the Rudd Government's 85 gay and lesbian law reforms are now being promoted by ACON.  Unfortunately for the Prime Minister, if he overturns the new ACT laws, he will get little credit for the important reforms he has achieved.  I hope he doesn't blow it.

On a recent trip to Europe I trained it through the Kent countryside with lots of kids heading home after school. It was a pleasant surprise along the way to see nearly every station, packed with schoolkids, had a large poster reading 'Some people are gay. Get over it.' I daydreamed about an imaginary day when a similar campaign would be seen in Perth, but then I realised one of the Barnett Government's bills to ban everything would probably make something about it illegal. 

In London at the same time there was an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery called Gay Icons, in which a number of prominent GLBT types (Elton, kd, Billie Jean, Sir Ian McKellen...) named their icons and the gallery then hung photos of them. As an exhibition it was a tad underwhelming and some of the chosen ones were rather self-indulgent in their selections. (Billy Jean King’s parents?) But the huge posters all over London advertising the exhibition were a heart-warming sight. They spelt out very clearly for London’s millions of visitors: 'This is a gay-friendly town. Get over it.' 

It's true we've also come a long way here in Oz, but there's still plenty of room for improvement. Which leads me to the Wear It With Pride campaign being promoted by Sydney’s ACON. A very worthy idea that "aims to empower same-sex couples with information about their new rights" following the reform of 85 Commonwealth laws. Three big cheers for the campaign. Terrific idea. It is indeed a huge milestone, even if the majority of us would never in our lives have encountered most of those discriminatory provisions. Congratulations to ACON for taking the initiative and lobbying for the funds to run this campaign.

Just one thing bugs me, and that's the media reports about the people allegedly signed up to front the campaign: "Natalie Bassingthwaighte, Ruby Rose, Richard Reid, Dr Kerryn Phelps, Courtney Act, and Jess and Lisa Origliasso from The Veronicas... There has been no word from the Minogue sisters but sources say organisers are hopeful." Oh please. Please. Can't we just once manage without any Minogues? Not that their support isn't welcome, of course, but it's not as though noone knows Kylie and Dannii love "the gays".  

Who knows how complete this list is or whence it came, but where are the gay men? Particularly the gay men who are not dressing as women, shrieking for pop stars or gossiping about (gag) celebrities. There’s surely more to gay male life in the 21st century than having your hair done like Helen Shapiro (sorry Court boys but honestly...) and screaming for Kylie/Britney/Christina/Beyonce. Where the hell is the testosterone in this campaign? Did Ian Roberts say no, or is he long tired of being the poofter poster boy for masculinity?

If you really, truly, seriously can’t find any gay blokes, what about some other blokes? If straight but comfortable-in-his-own-skin Rugby League player Nick Youngquest has no fear of fallout from appearing on the cover of Britain’s Attitude magazine, then surely he’d be happy to front this campaign and send a message to homoblokes that it really is okay to be gay at last and doesn't mean you have to take Judy Garland appreciation lessons or learn to walk in heels. (Not that there's anything wrong with that if you must.)

The powerful institutions that keep so many men and women in the closet are still in operation: schools, mainstream media, political parties, professional sport, Hollywood... We continue to hand out awards for straight men playing gay guys while not one major Hollywood actor is out and proud. I'd say taking the hatchet to those closets of power is a lot more urgent than all the energy being expended on chasing marriage.

Hey, it’s early days. Maybe ACON will blow everyone away with the variety and calibre of people they manage to line up to support the campaign. I sure hope so. I just really want to see some diversity of role models for young gay men beyond pop tarts and Carson Cresley.

I’d like to preface this opinion piece with a statement of intent. This is not about personalities or a critique of the performance of the Pride committee. (The term “Pride Widow" was coined some years back in reference to the partners of committee members and how very apt it is. Being a dedicated and active member of that committee means giving up a large slab of your life.)  Rather, this is about the future of a core Pride event and it’s a debate that is being had and needs to be had.

Several years ago a number of ordinary members tried unsuccessfully at a Special General Meeting to convince the then President of Pride that there was no point moaning about a lack of community support for events. In that particular case it was the party, which had been a financial disaster. The point members tried to make was that the failure was not the fault of a faceless entity, “the community”, but rather the failure of the committee to realise that they were selling something not enough people wanted to buy.

This year the party was a sell-out, in spite of the space issues at the same venue last year.  Clearly people really wanted it and Pride sold it well, with the money going to Pride and those who support Pride rather than those riding on its coat-tails.  And it sounds like most people had a fabulous night. Great job.  Similarly the community signals its support of Fair Day, or at least the bar at Fair Day, as well as quality festival events like ‘Bare: the Musical’ and ‘Gentlemen Prefer Blokes’. The parade is another matter.

Pride's "halcyon days" in the mid to late 90s were heady, exhilarating times of pumping parades and streets thronged with well-wishers, and the after parties with 2000 to 3000 people were some of the wildest events Perth had ever seen. But the world turns, rights are won, people find less need for a "community" around them, once numerous support, social and sporting groups fall by the wayside. Committee after Pride committee fought to maintain the early momentum, the thrill and the camaraderie, but in the end the hill grew too steep, the competition too fierce and the volunteers too thin on the ground. While Fair Day went from strength to strength, the party foundered with competition from Ministry of Sound and its big name DJs, and the Court Hotel with its then $5.00 tickets. And then there was the parade...

The parade, for which marching boys and marching girls once spent months rehearsing and on which businesses and venues lavished thousands of dollars building floats and making costumes, began to devolve. Volunteer marshal numbers plummeted, floats and marchers became fewer, costumes less spectacular, ideas less creative. (Is that you again Dorothy?) Valiant attempts to revive its flagging fortunes were minimally rewarded. On top of that, Perth’s spring weather has changed remarkably over the past five or six years and once balmy October nights are now chilly, windy and a tad unappealing.

Let’s look at the composition of last week’s parade. Subtract the (very welcome) straight participants and you may be left with half a parade. Subtract the women and you may have a fifth of a parade. Subtract them both and you’d definitely have enough for a backyard barbecue. This year Pride sent out a warning that the whole thing would have to be canned if they didn’t find a minimum number of marshals right away. And they were still very thin on the ground. Truth is, failing some rabid attack on GLBT rights in this State by the Government of the day, the parade is inevitably going to dwindle away to nothing, however much some people insist they’ll love and nurture it to the bitter end.

Let me stress: the devolution of the parade is not the fault of this committee or any previous committee and no one believes it is. It’s a consequence of social evolution and the passage of time. We are the victims of our own success. It’s no use calling for “the community” to get behind something that most people no longer care much about. On the other hand, the fact that thousands go to Connections and the Court on the night and some well-wishers still line the streets proves that many do still want a “Pride night” (or day) of some kind. What form could that take if we thought outside the square for a bit instead of clinging to the past?

The world has changed and moved on and we have to travel with it or be left behind in its dust. Pride is more than a parade—much more—so we shouldn't be afraid to let the parade go. As one of the people who founded Pride, I'd be sad about the parade's demise but satisfied that it served a very valuable purpose in its time and was retired with what remains of its dignity. Over to you...

With debate again raging about the contemporary relevance of the Pride Parade, following Daniel Hatch's opinion piece on page 38 of yesterday's edition of The West Australian, it is reasonable to ask whether staging the Parade year-in, year-out in the inner-city already-converted gay heartland of Northbridge does much to further gay and lesbian rights. 

Asking such a question should not be taken as a slight by the many people who worked tirelessly over the last few months to pull last night's Parade together.  However, as the Parades become shorter in length and smaller in both participation and observor numbers each year, we really must ask ourselves whether the Parade impacts positively or negatively on the perception of gay and lesbian people.  Over the course of the last seven years since the passage of gay and lesbian law reform, the Parade has slowly deteriorated in size, in creative flare and in both satirical and hard hitting political messages.  Of course, this is completely understandable - how long can you continue to expect the same group of people to keep coming up with big fresh ideas, when many believe that the battles they were fighting to win have been won.  However, while it is understandable, it is also concerning in that, by becoming an underwhelming spectacle, the modern Parade may actually be undermining hard-won perceptions of gay and lesbian people as a driven, motivated, creative and talented mob.

In recent years, successive Pride Committees have tried funding float building programs, offering prizes and staging fireworks in an effort to tiz up the Parade, with varying degress of success.  However, the long term trend is one of decline and, while last night's Parade being the 20th staging of the event inspired a little improvement, it is likely to be a blip on an otherwise depressing trajectory.

All that said, the Parade could have an important and exciting future if it looks beyond its well worn inner city comfort zone to parts of Western Australia where our hard-won gay and lesbian law reforms have not yet flowed through to tolerance on the street.  In many parts of outer-suburban Perth and regional Western Australia, life for gay and lesbian people remains as difficult as it did 10 or 20 years ago and the Pride Parade is possibly the one major event on our community's calendar with the potential to tackle this reality head on.

Why not uproot the Pride Parade from its Northbridge home and send it on a tour of regional centres over the next few years?  Starting with Bunbury next year, the Parade could then be staged in Albany, Geraldton and Kalgoorlie in subsequent years.  Imagine the comfort this could give to gay and lesbian people living in regional WA, the challenge it would pose to small-town small-minedness and the excitement it would generate amongst the retail and tourism sectors in each location.  The potential for year-long media coverage would be immense, as Pride sought approvals and local funding for the Parade, while fighting off the efforts of local religious and "family" groups who don't want our kind compromising their "small town values".

And wouldn't this invigorate Parade organisers and both our long term Parade participants and spectators alike?  A new challenge, new issues, a new route and a trip to the country to boot. Sure, it wouldn't be easy, but how easy do we think those early Pride marches were and how ultimately rewarding they became?

Of course, such an idea won't be popular to all - epecially the many Northbridge businesses that collectively rake in millions on Parade night.  However, my sympathy is limited on this front, with only Connections Nightclub contributing in any meaningful way to Pride, and Fairday and many other Northbridge-based festival events providing countless other opportunities for local traders.  Besides, if Northbridge traders really value the Parade, perhaps more of them will put real money on the table to win the event back following its regional tour of duty, or perhaps they could put their collective heads together and come up with a new Parade that brings together the best of Artrage, the Northbridge Festival and our gay and lesbian community.

Seriously, these ideas are not as silly as they might sound to some.  With the Parade having been staged in Northbridge for 20 years, it is timely to ask ourselves whether it will still be around in another 20 years.  If our honest assessment is that it probably will not be, then, while the Parade still has some reputation and profile, we must consider completely reinventing it and/or using it to fight battles that are yet to be won.

Pre-sale tickets to this year's official Pride after-party at Connections Nightclub have sold out.  Pride's Andrew Baietta told GAYinWA that, while the 1,000 pre-sale tickets had gone, patrons could still obtain a ticket on the door for $45 from 9pm.  Pre-sale ticket holders would have priority entry, however.  Meanwhile, down at the Court, pre-sale tickets to its annual street party are still available at the venue for $50 until 7pm this evening, or until sold out.  From 7.30pm, punters will be able to purchase tickets on the door for $55.  For more information about this evening's festivities, visit the Pride WA, Connections Nightclub and the Court Hotel websites.  Happy Pride from all of us at GAYinWA and congratulations and thank you to all past and present Pride Committee members and volunteers who have worked so hard over the last twenty years.

It’s all go in Northbridge these days, with the Pride Parade having to fight for space and publicity between the launch of the new piazza (I’d love to say “so Melbourne” but seriously...) and the start of the Northbridge Festival. Timing is a funny thing. I mean, there are 365 days and 52 weeks in a year, so why plonk a large sculpture in the middle of the James and Lake Streets roundabout a couple of days before the parade?

In 1997, William Street needed to be closed for the digging of the tunnel that would become the Graham Farmer Freeway. Despite the fact that the tunnel was years in development, the closure just happened to coincide with the entire month of October. Coincidence? Well, some thought so and others thought not given the then Lord Mayor’s antipathy to the parade and contacts in the big business area. 

In any case, the construction company, Clough I believe, responded in a hostile and downright homophobic way to the issue. Not to worry, the parade went ahead with a minor detour and if anything, the squabble served to boost interest in the event, which was at its peak in terms of numbers participating and attending in the late 90s

These days Lord Mayor Lisa Scaffidi  is anything but hostile to Pride, so there’s no point blaming her for the untimely appearance of a large sculpture, which appears to be the lovechild of a Rubik’s Cube and some Lego, in the middle of the roundabout that we were reliably informed some years ago would remain low and removable so as not to interfere with the passage of the parade.

My greatest concern is the danger that this sculpture presents to the safety of people on floats, not to mention the Dykes on Bikes. If the parade reaches the same dizzying pace of 2008, which saw the entire thing pass through the Lake Street intersection in under 15 minutes at a speed approaching that of sound, a head-on collision is inevitable. Thank the gods for that $5 million public liability insurance.

Anyhoooo, the sculpture is there now and it certainly won’t be going anywhere (except, perhaps, to be industrially cleaned of graffiti every few years), so happy negotiating the roundabout to all parade participants. And look on the bright side: at least it’s something modern and a bit wacky and not a bronze monument to some former Lord Mayor or other.

Just don't get me started on why the Christmas decorations also needed to go up a few days before the parade. Happy Pride.

The Great Gay & Lesbian Debate will be staged next week with a star-studded lineup of debaters including Giz Watson MLC, John Hyde MLA, the West Australian's Daniel Hatch, former GLCS Chair Mark Woodman, former Pride Co-President Sue Fisher Hendry and former Pride Patron Aram Hosie.  Hosted by RTRFM's Danae Gibson, our debaters will be exploring whether Straight is the New Gay.  The Great Gay & Lesbian Debate will be staged at the exciting new Burlesque Lounge in Northbridge on Wednesday 28th October, commencing at 7pm.  Staged by GAYinWA Events, part proceeds from the night will be donated the GLBTI Retirement Association (GRAI).  Tickets will be available on the door only for $20 (general) and $16 (concession).  There will be a licensed bar, a raffle doing the rounds and all debate patrons will get free entry to the Ellington Jazz Club afterwards.

Last year's debate was a scream and this year's event promises to be even better.  Check out highlights from last year's debate below.