![first gay pride parade in belfast first gay pride parade in belfast](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DuDPp5iWsAA-wGG.jpg)
"I most definitely do not regard myself as any better than a homosexual on a moral level - Good As You is quite correct," he replied. Stop The Parade was one of several groups on the protest Many believe the term "gay" was coined as a happy abbreviation for Good As You - something the BBC News website put to STP's Jonathan Larner. Tattooed on the torsos of some of the 2005 paraders were the words "forbidden fruit", playing on a local term of abuse for homosexuals. Gays, as another Pride organiser put it, are "probably the most discriminated-against group in Northern Ireland". "I feel people are channelling their anger to the ethnic minorities, to sexual minorities instead."
![first gay pride parade in belfast first gay pride parade in belfast](https://media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com/image/upload/t_nbcnews-fp-1024-512,f_auto,q_auto:best/newscms/2019_21/2863601/190520-belfast-pride-cs-1017a.jpg)
"The old sectarian tensions aren't an excuse anymore," said Andi Clarke.
![first gay pride parade in belfast first gay pride parade in belfast](https://www.sott.net/image/s23/461913/full/chicago_gay_lesbian_pride_para.jpg)
One thing you hear repeatedly among the local gay community is that the Pride is one of the few genuinely cross-community events in Northern Ireland, transcending barriers between Protestants and Catholics.īut there is also a perception that the easing of the Troubles has led to a search for new scapegoats. While most parade-goers are gay men or women or transexual/transgendered, a large number are heterosexual, he adds, and he was hoping to top the 2004 turnout of 3,000. "Because there is opposition, people are actually getting up and saying 'No, hang on, there is a case here, people are not going to be suppressed anymore, not here in Northern Ireland in 2005'. "It had become more of a carnival, more of a party, but now it has almost turned on its head and become political again," Belfast Pride's Andi Clarke told the BBC News website. Their bid was rejected but the application made a live issue of an established event, publicising "sensitivities" around the Pride that its organisers had barely noticed in past years. So strong has their feeling been that this year they tried to have the Pride march banned through Northern Ireland's Parades Commission - a body more used to causes coloured Orange and Green, not Pink. It must be hard to keep a straight face, no pun intended, when a glam guitar man on stilts in a giant pink Afro wig staggers by to the strains of Madonna's Like A Prayer, but the hugely outnumbered Stop The Parade (STP) activists stood their ground, bearing witness with dignity to their Christian faith in the teeth of what, for them, is a celebration of sin. Where outrage did surface was among the organised protesters, facing down the avenue from the City Hall with a show of placards like shields in this city famous for the strength of its religious feeling. Throw in coloured balloons and boas, disco floats and a posse of superheroes on mini motorcycles, and you have the 2005 Belfast Gay Pride, dancing its way around the city centre this Saturday.īar a homophobic joke or two, there was little sign of indignation - and much good humour - among the crowds lining Royal Avenue to see the carnival in its 15th year, among them many families.
![first gay pride parade in belfast first gay pride parade in belfast](https://i2-prod.irishmirror.ie/incoming/article18822903.ece/ALTERNATES/s615b/0_JS189293901.jpg)
The serious intent of Pride 2005 did not dampen the carnival spiritĪnd if your cause happens to be not local politics but the right to be gay, does the culture not dictate banners, bands and your best foot forward?