Pride

You may be wondering why I haven't posted photographs of Saturday's Pride in Rome. Well, it's simple. I was visiting my mother in England and had muddled up the dates. (How gay is that?) But I have it on good authority (Peter's) that it went off well, despite the shameful 'confusion' about route, only sorted out four days before the event. The photograph in the national section of Repubblica shows a rather fetching young man in loincloth and stigmata and presumably refers to some archaic gay ritual I haven't come across in my extensive reading. Others, better informed, are shocked. There's the usual confusion about numbers: 300,000 according to the organisers, two old queens and a poodle according to the police. Whether it served its purpose, assuming one knew what that was, I don't know, but I'm sorry I missed it. Still, I've been through the snaps I posted from last year's event and that of 2007 and thought I'd revive a few favourites. Here they are.

Here we go again

Last year, for the most absurd reasons (a choral recital in a nearby building, if I remember rightly), under evident pressure from the Vatican and the post-fascist mayor of Rome, Gianni Alemanno, Rome Gay Pride was denied the use of Piazza San Giovanni. The mean-spirited sods are trying it on again this year, eleven days before the march is due to take place, in an attempt to effectively cancel the event. I've been asked to pass this message on to you by the SUPPORT ROMA PRIDE 2009, and that's what I'm doing. If you don't want Rome to look like Moscow or Tehran, you know what to do. And if you're on Facebook, you can join up here. 

Dear friends,

As some of you already know the 13th of June is the date of Roma Pride 2009, but at the moment, only ten days before the event, we still have no authorized route for the final parade and march. Yesterday the police autorities again denied authorization, for the third time, with reasons that are no more than absurd excuses.

As well as the usual Pride issues, such as visibility, rights, non discrimination and equality for LGBT people and communities, we face a conservative attack on basic democratic and civil rights, as guaranteed by the Italian Constitution and the international conventions. Again Piazza San Giovanni has been denied because of the veto of the Vatican and clerical authorities. However, last year's route from Piazza della Repubblica to Piazza Navona has also been denied this year, making it almost impossible the march to take place, and damaging the democratic and civil rights of all Italian citizens, not just GLBT people.

We really need moral support from all of you, and from abroad.You can support Roma Pride 2009 by writing your personal or associative support to romapride@gmail.com (you can send a copy also to me at a.maccarrone@mariomieli.org), by spreading and forwarding this message to other people, above all other groups or associations, GLBT groups, Pride organisers, activists for civil and human rights, politicians, journalists that may be interested in this topic, and by creating mobilization or any other kind of useful iniative at any level.
If you are a journalist or have web sites, blogs, newsletters or acces to any other media, please help us byspreading this information.

Thank you for your support and help,

Andrea Maccarrone

Postscript to postscript

Sorry about this - and believe me, I really am trying to move on - but I was so appalled by this example of partisan journalism, in a country that knows little else, that I felt I had to share it. For those among you who don't speak Italian, the irate young man in a suit at the beginning of the piece isn't one of the spotty fascists (from Casa Pound, god help us) who tried to disrupt the march last Saturday, but a frustrated groom. He was supposed to be getting married in Via dei Fori Imperiali, but couldn't get the car to the church. Authorisation had been granted months before, he said. Sound familiar? Right! If the council had respected the authorisation it gave to Gay Pride months before, he wouldn't have found his wedding delayed. Odd that no one in the studio thought of pointing this out.

The skinny bint playing nervously with her pen in the rest of the piece is Carfagna. You may not have recognised her with her clothes on. She's talking about sobriety and stuff like that, but I won't bother you any more with her silliness. We've all heard enough from Carfagna for one government.

Ave Hitler

Now that the catholic church has got a government prepared to present its belly to the clerical boot without any questions being asked, this photograph is a useful reminder of another epoch in which the interests of church and state also appeared to coincide.

(I wouldn't have felt the need to post this rather snippy comment if I hadn't just heard Minister for Equal Opportunities Mara Carfagna (see topless photo here) explain why Rome, as the heart of Christianity, isn't an appropriate venue for Gay Pride. Maybe someone should tell her that it was also home to Julius Caesar, Petronius, Hadrian, etc. But why bother? Why tell the monkey what the organ grinder already knows?)

Thanks to Marisacat for the photo.

Pride postscript

I forgot to mention that Rome council's decision to forbid Gay Pride to wind up in Piazza San Giovanni looked more and more like an own goal yesterday afternoon. San Giovanni's bigger than Piazza Navona, but it's also well off the tourist/shopping route. Sending us through Piazza Venezia and the heart of the old city increased the visibility of the march tenfold. Even the fact that the entrance into Piazza Navona was narrow enough to create a bottleneck played into our hands. The only inconvenient aspect of the re-routing was that all those choristers who had an appointment in the Lateran Palace, the one that would have clashed with Pride (except that it wouldn't), had to lift up their skirts and run all the way from Piazza Navona, along Via dei Fori Imperiali and Via Labicana and up the last bit of Via Merulana to make sure they didn't miss their concert at half past eight. Sweet dreams are made of this.

Moments of pride

Dancing on the spot

This was taken in Piazza Navona, towards the end of yesterday's Gay Pride in Rome. I had, as I always have, a very good time indeed. I danced, I sang, I stared, I photographed. My impression was that there were an awful lot of people - at one point, halfway down Via Cavour, the whole street seemed to be packed with people from top to bottom. This was confirmed by the organisers, who estimated half a million (the police say 10-20,000. They would, wouldn't they?) The rain held off, and so did party-poopers, with the exception of a rather unpleasant man with dirty grey hair who was clearly upset by the whole business and a small group of youths in suits and ties bearing flags with Celtic crosses on them (like the one, coincidentally, worn by Alemanno) who popped up, appropriately on Via dei Fori Imperiali, and threatened to stab us all. Help! The Italian papers, dramatically, report that the nasty little fascists erupted, presumably in the same way a spot erupts on an otherwise unblemished face. The papers today have given an inordinate amount of space to this trivial hormonal problem, accompanying their articles with the usual display of transsexuals in full ceremonial uniform. Yes, I love them too, and I love the muscle boys and the disco bunnies and the bears, and the world would be a sadder place without them. BUT. I - who have never knowingly worn drag, and no longer have pecs to die for and dance in the privacy of parties and am, just, too slim to be a fully-furred bear, was also there, and so were many thousands of others who were practically indistinguishable from everyone else who wasn't on the march. You know the kind of people I mean: old and young, fat and thin, plain and hot, bright and dim, tall and short, make and female, dog-lovers and dog-haters, right and left. I know this kind of truth goes against the journalistic grain, but it would be refreshing to see newspapers show the sheer variety of the event. It looks as though, once again, it's up to me. So if you'd like to see all the photos I took yesterday, of the ordinary and extraordinary people who took part in Pride, click here. (Flickr has decided to rearrange the order, so you'll be starting at the end and working back...)

PS The title of this post actually refers to a video I've been unable to upload, but I've left it anyway. If nothing else, it reflects the fact that we are still dancing, without any specific advance or sign of it.

Ten percent of population, one day of year. Hmm

Gay Pride comes round once again. Last year, the national event was held in Rome and emotions were running high. Family Day, the church-inspired hate-fest had been and gone shortly before and the mood was one of rebellion and righteous anger. This year, Rome Gay Pride is precisely that, for Romans and anyone prepared to make the trip, and there doesn't seem to be much of a mood at all. Not that small gauntlets haven't been thrown down. The march now ends in Piazza Navona, instead of the previously authorised Piazza San Giovanni, where a bunch of choristers now need heterosexual silence to warble in (this may be a novelty for them). Politically, this is bad news, but hey! Piazza Navona's so much more convenient for the shops no one's complaining. The council, with its new mayor, Gianni "Bovver Boy" Alemanno in charge, has refused its patronage, but that's not new. It was also refused under centre-left administrations. Gauntlets, shmauntlets, in other words.

A worrying note, though, was struck, last night by a lesbian friend of ours. We called to fix up a place to meet. What for? she said. For Gay Pride, we told her. Gay Pride? she said. No one's going on it this year. We are, we said. So if you read this, and are in Rome, you might want to prove her wrong. The march starts in Piazza della Repubblica at 3, heads off down Via Cavour at 4, passes across Piazza Venezia and then, by which route I'm not sure, ends up in Piazza Navona. It's all pretty scenic, so you won't regret it. I'll be the one in 80 centimetre gold lamé platforms and a frock even Ru Paul wouldn't risk wearing. Don't worry, I'm joking.

There will be photos.

Lesser god stuff

Nine days before Gay Pride is supposed to take place in Rome (Saturday, 7 June), the organisers have discovered that the march can no longer end in Piazza San Giovanni, despite authorisation having been granted in April. Why not? Because it would coincide with a choral performance and convention in the Lateran Palace, next door to St. John Lateran. The Lateran Palace has extraterritorial status, which means it doesn't actually belong to Italy or come under Italian jurisdiction, fiscal or otherwise, but that's clearly less important than ensuring the discomfort of the many thousands of Italian taxpayers who'd expected to end their annual march (sorry, vulgar exhibitionist display) in a square traditionally associated with civil rights and the left.

Alemanno strikes again.

No-neh

Gianni Alemanno, Rome's new mayor, as far as I know unasked, has announced that the city will not be supporting Gay Pride 2008 (yes, it's that time of year again), on the grounds that he doesn't approve of sexual displays of any kind, heterosexual or homosexual. This is the standard line now, and really means nothing at all, unless of course he's also going to suggest that Alessandra Mussolini, or Daniala Santanché or any of the other belles du jour of the right, button up their blouses and climb down off their vertiginously high heels, which have the effect, as high heels are designed to have, of emphasising their buttocks and calves, admittedly secondary sexual characteristics, but nonetheless on display. It isn't clear though whether this mayoral disapproval is going to express itself as laissez faire disdain or take the more concrete form of a ban. That would be foolish, and unpopular abroad (as if Alemanno cared). It might be the most practical thing to have us all herded into some suitable public space. A stadium, say. Or one of the gipsy camps about to be emptied of their current inhabitants. Or why not simply put us all in the same place - gipsies and gays together? It won't be the first time, after all. It's actually rather practical. Gipsies are dirty and horribly untidy, while gays love nothing more than rearranging the furniture and ironing doilies. It's a holocaust made in heaven.

Some Forza Italia token gay, god love him, suggests that we should do the march in suits and ties. This reminds me of the time I saw a member of the gay commune Bethnal Rouge - oh heady days! - in unusually sober attire. 'I'm wearing man drag,' he confided. 'I've got to go to the job centre.' On the other hand, Rome is worth a waistcoat...

(It's worth remembering, of course, that Rutelli, the PD candidate for mayor, also withdrew support for Gay Pride on similar grounds. You see how fair I am?)

PS No-neh is the noise Roman matrons make when denying children some small pleasure; it's accompanied by a wagging finger.

More information than you'll ever need

I've just worked out how to publish photo albums with Picasa. So if you'd like to see all the shots of last summer's Rome Gay Pride, including the ones that I didn't post, now's your chance.

Gay Pride Rome June 2007

Gay Pride: last legs

I don't know how this one slipped through...

Gay Pride 2007: The interview (part two - the proof)

I'm ten lines down in the last column. You can just about see my name (and age).

Gay Pride 2007: Reasoned response from the right

Gay Pride 2007: The interview (part two)

More from the Rome pages of Il Messaggero:

«Io sono etero, single, con un figlio - spiega Michaela Parris-Lord, 55 anni, ex assistente di volo - sono qui per protestare contro il Family day, perché l’Italia è ancora arretrata rispetto all’Europa». Vicino a lei, Charles Lambert, 53 anni, insegnante d’inglese a Roma Tre: «Sono 21 anni che sto col mio compagno, trovo molto irritante ancora discutere dei diritti dei gay. Qui si parla della laicità dello Stato». «E a me non piace l’idea che l’unico mix valido sia la famiglia - aggiunge Sally Mac Laren, 52 anni, anche lei insegnante di inglese - io sono single e sto bene così».

(Translation: I'm heterosexual, single, with a son, explains Michaela Parris-Lord, 55, ex flight assistant - I'm here to protest against Family Day, because Italy is still left behind compared with the rest of Europe. Near her, Charles Lambert, 53, English teacher at Roma Tre university: "I've been with my partner for 21 years and I find it extremely irritating that we should be discussing gay rights. The issue here is the laicism of the state." "And I don't like the idea that the only set-up considered valid is the family," adds Sally MacLaren, 52, another English teacher - "I'm single and happy this way.")

Gay Pride 2007: Information?

What's most interesting today, after yesterday's euphoria, is the silence of the midday television news programmes (TG1 and TG2). Family Day triggered days of attacks and counter-attacks, as does almost every political event in Italy, however trivial. But today? Not a single word.

The centre-left clearly doesn't know what to do with a demonstration that accused the entire coalition, justifiably, of cowardice and inertia, while directly attacking some of its most prominent members as out-and-out homophobes. (Yes, I'm thinking of self-harming Senator Paola Binetti.) The still-to-be-born Democratic Party emerges from yesterday's demo looking even more sickly than before. If ever there a need for a therapeutic abortion, this is it.

The centre-right, on the other hand, astute enough to realise that, with a million people people in the piazza, no news is good news obviously prefer the event to be forgotten as rapidly as possible so that it can get back to the real business of re-assuming power for its own nefarious purposes.

The television has also been curiously silent on the announced divorce of post-fascist leader, Gianfranco Fini. Ah, Family Day...

Gay Pride 2007: The interview (part one)

This comes from Il Messaggero, the Rome-based national daily. I was interviewed at the beginning of the march yesterday and said an awful lot, as you can imagine. (If you can't, just click on the label homophobia.) The comment quoted, which means "I feel threatened, a few years ago there was a greater sense of freedom", was part of a larger attack on the impunity with which homophobic comments are made in Italy in ever increasing numbers, with no political response in favour of gay (human) rights, and the way this shameful silence chipped away at our hard-won social space. As it stands in the article, it sounds more whiny than I'd intended, above all since I've never felt particularly threatened on a personal level (although this may now change as a result of the article: I seem to be the only marcher whose surname and, in part, address has been provided in any of the three newspapers I've read today).

I particularly like being described as colourful, happy and innocuous... as of course I am. Although I'm not quite sure about innocuous... I like to think I can be a little dangerous when the occasion demands. In any case, you can see for yourself in this photo, taken by Michaela. Thanks, Mike!)

Gay Pride 2007

Gay Pride 2007

Gay Pride 2007: Sour faces

Acidulous tourists outside a hotel. Faces like this were, fortunately, few and far between.