The saga of Giorgio Mammoliti’s fight against funding Pride Toronto—which began with disputes about the participation of Queers Against Israeli Apartheid and continued with the somewhat odd (some called it creepy) sight of Mammoliti videotaping the Dyke March during this year’s Pride Week—is over for now. The York West councillor says he’ll accept that the city can’t take back the money it promised Pride just because he found three examples of speech he doesn’t like.
According to the National Post, Mammoliti issued this statement:
While I concede that it would be illegal to remove funding from Pride Toronto based on the City Manager’s decision on Toronto’s Anti-Discrimination policy, I will work over the next few months to change City policy. Contrary to what some of my colleagues have been saying this past week, standing up for taxpayers is not ‘creepy’.
If Mammoliti really wants to say that using creepy means to stand up for taxpayers isn’t actually creepy, well okay. (And yes, this gets into “extremism in defense of virtue is no vice” territory.) Going forward, Mammoliti says that city policy should prohibit festivals with a political message from getting city funding. It will be interesting to see how city staff respond, given the difficulty in defining what is and isn’t political. The debate around Pride is actually a great example of this, given the argument by some that QuAIA was politicizing a non-political event, while others argued that Pride is inherently political. While Mammoliti’s proposal sounds like he’s just trying to be consistent, categorizing events based on political-ness will probably end up being an even bigger headache.
• ‘Standing up for taxpayers is not creepy’: Mammoliti statement [National Post]
• Pride funding likely safe — for now, says Mammoliti [Toronto Star]
This guy is disgusting and an absolute embarrassment to the City of Toronto.
July 12, 2011 at 4:03 pm | by EMSWhat is disgusting is the racism that is accepted and defended at Pride Week. Only one type of racism allowed though, of course, even though there is only one gay Mecca in the Middle East; in Tel Aviv.
July 12, 2011 at 4:18 pm | by MitchSo Mitch. Enlighten us. What racism are you talking about?
July 12, 2011 at 8:18 pm | by SQAlso which “race” ? Also, what do you think about QAIA ‘s critique of your gay mecca?
It IS creepy, especially since Mammoliti only went to the Dyke March to look out for anti-Israeli apartheid messaging — where glimpses of breasts are almost always guaranteed — without even bothering to look out for anti-Israeli Apartheid messaging at the Trans March the day before! What’s that all about?
July 12, 2011 at 8:18 pm | by Martingoing from one absurdity to the other. Perhaps politicians should stay out of politics?! this guy is a two bit dummy, the city would have to defund Toronto International Film Festival, Luminato, Hot Docs, and all the other cultural events it supports as they are full of “political” messages. They also happen to bring in millions and millions of revenue to our fair city. But let’s not ly it all at Mammoliti’s feet; Rob Ford was also the driving force behind trying to defund Pride and QuAIA called his bluff: They realized they were being used as an excuse to defund Pride and Ford’s no-show and horrific record on voting re gay and lesbian issues as well as Mammoliti’s homophobic remarks over the years both place them in precarious places when it comes to the queer community. Bigots are bullies who use others excuses to ram through other agenda. Criticism of state gov’ts is still legitimate, for now, in Canada.
July 13, 2011 at 8:29 am | by eyalThis fool should come out already. Get down to the Steamworks and once it’s all out of your system, start thinking about some real governance issues. BTW – Don’t even try to bust out the ‘respect for taxpayers’ cliche on this issue. I’m fairly certain those self-same taxpayers are also business owners and employees, i.e. the economic beneficiaries of Pride. Clown.
July 13, 2011 at 10:33 am | by G