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COMMENT: Shame gay pride festival is cancelled

7:30am Tuesday 10th August 2010 in News

COMMENT: Shame gay pride festival is cancelled COMMENT: Shame gay pride festival is cancelled

WHAT a shame Worcester’s first gay pride festival has been cancelled. Worcester Pride appears to have fallen victim to the coalition government’s new age of austerity.

Organisers say public sector cuts mean a number of bodies that had promised support in cash or in kind have now had to withdraw their offers.

There will still be an event on a much smaller scale in the city over the weekend of September 17-19 but the huge event planned for September 18 is now off.

That is unfortunate for Worcester and for the cancer charities that would have benefited from the festival.

We know some of our readers were uneasy with the idea of a gay pride festival in Worcester.

But we also know there were many people – of all sexual persuasions – looking forward to the event.

Events like Worcester Pride have been huge successes in other parts of the country.

Brighton’s gay festival, for instance, is now an established part of its social calendar and brings huge numbers of visitors (and their cash) to the area.

Worcester Pride may have taken a while to get anywhere near the size of event staged in Brighton each year but it will have provided the city and its traders with a welcome financial boost.

We think the festival would have been a good addition to the arts, music and beer events that have become a part of the city’s summer.

Let us hope plans to resurrect the festival next year come to fruition.

Comments(18)

abarrett1982 says...
7:47am Tue 10 Aug 10

Why not have a Straight Festival instead?

Or an English/British Pride Festival.

If the gay community can have one, it's only right (under the democratic law of the EU I hasten to add) that straight people should be allowed to express themselves.

Besides, most gay people wouldn't be offended - infact most gay people I know of have told me they'd back the idea.

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moonpig says...
8:33am Tue 10 Aug 10

I think the sentiments behind the festival are great but I do not see why any of these events have to be linked to any kind of sexuality? Rightly or wrongly a huge proportion of the population will be put off by the gay emphasis on the festival so if the idea is to raise money for charities (and not to flaunt sexuality and an urge to shock) then I don't see why they have to be linked to sex. I don't care what anyone does in the privacy of their own sex lives but private is the key word. As someone suggested somewhere else let's have a Worcester 'Pride' festival which everyone will feel happy in supporting.

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molecat says...
9:00am Tue 10 Aug 10

The organiser has my sympathies. Can I offer him the following advice?

Young man, there's no need to feel down.
I said, young man, pick yourself off the ground.
I said, young man, 'cause you're in a new town
There's no need to be unhappy.

Young man, there's a place you can go.
I said, young man, when you're short on your dough.
You can stay there, and I'm sure you will find
Many ways to have a good time.

It's fun to stay at the y-m-c-a.
It's fun to stay at the y-m-c-a.

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MrStJohns says...
9:18am Tue 10 Aug 10

Im feeling your happy vibe Molecat.

Hey look it hasn’t worked out this year for various reasons. Which is a shame but use it to build on for a bigger event next year when hopefully the economy etc may be on more of an upward turn. As stated in the article this will be a fantastic event to go along side the Excellent Worcester music festival the beer festival the Worcester festival itself and of course the newly planned literature festival for next year. Good luck to the organisers and I hope you get it sorted for next year.

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sir james says...
10:19am Tue 10 Aug 10

What about an Ethnic Pride Day where you can flaunt your ethnicity?

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MrStJohns says...
10:22am Tue 10 Aug 10

I thought you’d gone on holiday, did they send you back home or something. What a shame.

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sir james says...
11:46am Tue 10 Aug 10

Ethnic pride not your thing Johnsie?You could wear a pink and lycra Cross of St George....or would a pure white flag of ethnic surrender suit you better?
Toodaloo....I`m off in search of a new home where people are proud to be themselves and relish their own culture.

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MrStJohns says...
12:24pm Tue 10 Aug 10

You keep promising Sir James but you never actually go.

I wont bother commenting on your rather incendiary comments, they make you sounds like you’ve lost the plot. Maybe a holiday would do you good.

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Karl Hunderson says...
12:49pm Tue 10 Aug 10

james, where were you born and what ethnicity are you? And, more importantly, what choice did you have in either of the above and why is either important?

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sir james says...
1:30pm Tue 10 Aug 10

I will decide what is important to me and not you Karl.
I was born in Worcester a few yards from my present home,but three of my grandparents came from Islay in the Hebrides though my name is a Welsh one.Perhaps we could agree that I am a Celtic person whose ancestors could have been in the British Isles for thousands of years,and my racial relatives are the Iberoceltic peoples who live all the way down the western seaboard of Europe.
I was raised to feel proud of my heritage and to take the attitude still prevelant in Wales,Scotland and Ireland that we should feel pride in ourselves.
Sadly,I live in depressing gutless global capitalist England where all national pride is forbidden unless it happens to be foreign to England in its origins.
The closest thing we English born get to a national spirit is watching homosexuals march around making a mockery of our flag and anyone normal who dares to express pride in being English.

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Karl Hunderson says...
1:48pm Tue 10 Aug 10

No James, national pride is not forbidden. Only a vocal minority, which includes you, think it is because they have been duped into believing so by crap on the internet and crap in the media. Much of the hysteria surrounding so call PC policies are just myths - the recent furore about the wearing of football shirts is a case in point - even our own WN chose to fan the flames. In fact, if anything, people are more afraid to express their national pride for fear of associating themselves with the likes of you who rant and rave all day long against anything and everything. Oh, and by the way I only asked what was important to you I did't make any decision for you.

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MrStJohns says...
1:57pm Tue 10 Aug 10

You’ve obviously never attended the Edinburgh fringe festival then James. Or can you not imagine the Scottish people allowing gay transsexual or anyone else that you don’t conceive as ‘normal’, being allowed into Scotland. I think the world that you live in is contrived in your own head.

Ireland has many gay festivals as does Wales and Scotland as mentioned above, the whole fact you feel threatened by such events shows you for what you are. As you rightly say pride is fantastic, but you don’t really show pride just narrow minded views, im certainly proud to live in Worcester which is a fantastic and interesting city with many multicultural groups living side by side. You’l obviously never change you mind and that’s totally justified but in truth the comments you post on here are obviously only designed to draw a response, so il leave you to it.

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sir james says...
1:59pm Tue 10 Aug 10

Don`t worry St Johnsie...the floor is all yours now... YAWN!

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sir james says...
2:15pm Tue 10 Aug 10

God,you people are so dim and brainwashed.
I don`t care whether homosexuals celebrate their sexuality,after all heterosexuality is certainly pushed down our throats endlessly!
I am complaining about the active suppression of English culture and national spirit.And don`t tell me that it isn`t happening.
You prattling ninnies wouldn`t dare hold an English Pride Day.
Go on ...try it!
In minutes it will be taken over by the likes of the BBC and turned into a "let`s pointedly celebrate every OTHER culture day".
And no I don`t give a toss about the other "cultures" that have been foisted on me.
I know too much about what they entail and how corrupt,fascistic and prehistoric many of them are!
And don`t imagine they would all tolerate a Gay Pride Day either!

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barbourne-worcester says...
2:53pm Tue 10 Aug 10

From what i hear the Worcester Pride Committee also have a lot to answer for, they should not blame it all on government cuts etc their organisation skills left a lot to be desired!

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Worcesterman says...
7:50am Wed 11 Aug 10

It seems to me that most of the writers of our letters, seem to dislike sir james, why? just because he has his own view, of what is happening to this country of ours, does not give you the right to degenerate him.
.
The Worcester News, allow us to debate, moan, and just about anything else. But all I see is that you all seem to gang on him, just because he is different, and now you all seem to want to see him go.
.
Please, all of you do not try to ban free speech, as when its gone we are all the losers.

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sir james says...
8:20am Wed 11 Aug 10

Worcesterman,you are a star!
BTW,I think you mean denigrate,though it`s true I am degenerating,but that`s the effect of nature and time,rather than pressure from a collection of well meaning but fatally misguided girl guides with their Blue Peter badges in muddled thinking and lying back and forgetting England!
I do wonder if there is any hope for the English race,now every so called traveller,crook, terrorist,or simple opportunist can just walk in under the smokescreen of asylum and multiculturalism and take us to the cleaners on behalf of Wall Street capitalism.
But you can see how zombified and indoctrinated British people are becoming under the influence of the global capitalist media.
They would have a lot more difficulty turning proud people like the Irish or the Israelis or the Chinese into grovelling maidservants to every chancer who strayed through their borders!

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Cheesed Orf says...
10:23pm Sat 14 Aug 10

mmmmm....I'm English, but to be honest I've come to dislike being English. We are now just a bunch of down-trodden, fawning folk who just want to make everyone else happy exept us.
.
It would be nice if there were a few (quite a few) more people like our Sir James who can really see what is happening to the English race and culture.
.
And before anyone moans that I feel this way, and understand Sir James' way of thinking, remember I can say what I want in this free Country.....for now.

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