Stonewall – an ongoing betrayal

Theresa May – Murdering Queers!

Fury as deportations department get top award.
Stonewall equality conference faces LGBT protest.

 

 

Gay Mafia Watch has been documenting this ongoing betrayal of the LGBT community for several years now. It looks as if “Stonewall’s Adversity Champions” are causing another storm…

Just when we thought they’d learned their lesson, our favourite pseudo-equality charity has gone and done it again. What is wrong with Stonewall?

London-based immigration rights group “No Borders” claim equality charity is “celebrating the managers of detention and deportation” after the Home Office was given the top spot in Stonewall’s annual index of “top 100 employers” in Britain.

Once a respected civil rights campaigning group, Stonewall has been consumed and transformed beyond recognition, motivated by power and greed.

Recipients of yet another meaningless Stonewall accolade this year, the Home Office is the lead government department with a number of subsidiaries including the UK Borders Agency which is directly responsible for forcibly removing failed asylum seekers (including LGBT people) fleeing persecution, rape, torture, and death such as Asylum Seeker from Uganda, Brenda Namigadde – who was at the high court fighting her deportation only last week.

Not only has this award been given to one of the most despicable elements of the government, Stonewall’s made a special effort to endorse Conservative MP Theresa May as some sort of hero behind this achievement. Neither have anything to be proud about.

The current Home Secretary who also has the controversial title “Equality Minister” recently faced a short-lived campaign calling for her dismissal on the grounds of her utterly despicable parliamentary record on LGBT equality which includes voting:

– Against abolishing Section 28.
– Against an equal Age of Consent.
– Against Gay Adoption Rights.
– Against Lesbian Fertility Rights.
– Abstained on Gender Recognition.

Even worse – she’s being touted as the Keynote Speaker for Stonewall’s forthcoming 2011 Workplace Conference, sponsored by Barclays Bank. The event generates a great deal of revenue for Stonewall, charging up to £450 a ticket.

As this news spreads across social networks, we can report the LGBT Community is NOT happy. Stonewall better brace itself for yet ANOTHER revolt from the very people they claim to represent.

PROTEST!…

Activist groups are planning a protest at Stonewall’s 2011 Workplace Conference on Friday 18^th March outside the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in London.

Not only will Theresa May be attending, but she’ll be joined by an array of other nasties! – none of them deserving of any type of award relating to equality or human rights.

For more info on the protest email: stonewallprotest@yahoo.com

-we’ll update this page when we have any more details.

 

 

 

It’s time to….
Sack Theresa May!
Sack Ben Summerskill!

After her appointment in May 2010 as “Equalities Minister” the Prime Minister faced a barrage of calls for her to be sacked. One group of LGBT activists even set up a website www.sacktheresamay.co.uk arguing that her political history makes her unsuitable to hold the position as Equalities Minister, boasting a facebook group with over 75,000 members.

 

“We do not think she is at all qualified to be Minister for Equality, we do not consider her to be committed to the cause of equality and for this reason would question her ability to be effective in this position. Furthermore, her appointment is symbolically counter-productive as it suggests there is not a better person for the job who can be a real role model for the campaign for equal rights.” – (Campaign to Sack Theresa May Spokesperson)

 

Stonewall’s Chief Executive, Ben Summerskill doesn’t acknowledge any this, firmly believing the Tories now “need to be forgiven” believing the lie their ideology has changed, continuing it’s agenda of pimping out the gay community to big business through it’s rigged awards schemes. In reality Conservative values have merely evolved in order to appear more socially acceptable.

 

Giving a platform to the disgraceful human being that is Theresa May at such a high-profile conference, and dishing out awards to the Home Office reaffirms this reality.

Theresa May is Murdering Queers!

 

Stonewall should be on the side of the real grass roots campaigners, for whom gay rights is a matter of life or death, instead it prefers to share crates of champagne with police commissioners, the directors of Barclays Bank and Goldman Sachs, whilst offering scumbag politicians a standing ovation.

 

Nine months after the initial campaign for her to resign as Equalities Minister, Theresa May is STILL under pressure from others not to deport LGBT asylum seekers, such as Brenda Namigadde – who had to take her battle to the High Court only last week to obtain a temporary injunction against Stonewall’s “number one employer” – the Home Office.

 

Brenda is a Lesbian from Uganda, a country which regularly tortures, rapes and kills LGBT people. Government ministers must take responsibility or prepare to be held to account, charged with the same guilt as their international collegues.

 

On the exact same say Brenda was in court, news broke of the brutal murder of prominent Ugandan gay rights activist David Kato. As the Home Office maintains it’s silence, and refuses amnesty to Brenda and countless others in a similar position action must now be taken.

 

Considering her failure to save Brenda and others, Theresa May’s pale apologies for her past voting record in response to the short-lived “Sack Theresa May” furore must now be dismissed, along with her – and all who sail with her.

Stonewall’s praising of the government at this time is unacceptable, once again colluding with the very people who want to harm the LGBT people. It’s also time for Ben Summerskill to go too.

Now you’ve read it, please SHARE this page.

 

 

 

Reclaiming Pride in Manchester

Reclaim Manchester Pride!

As a community we must resist the ongoing fraudulent activity perpetuated by Manchester Pride and it’s partner agencies such as the parasitic Lesbian and Gay Foundation. For a start you may decide not to apply for any funding they offer as doing so validates their shady activity and provides their bogus projects with a cover to hide behind.

You can look for funding elsewhere – throughout Greater Manchester and beyond which have a great deal more integrity and don’t require you to act as a billboard for Manchester Pride and it’s corrupt operations. Why allow your organsation’s reputation to be tarnished by being associated with their wrong-doing?

Take a look at the Big Lottery Fund, Awards for All and Funder Finder. The Consortium of LGBT organisations publishes a monthly bulletin detailing a number of funding opportunities for LGBT community groups more details can be found here. Manchester City Council also provide small grants all year round to small community groups through their Change fund which is open throughout the year.

You can complain to the Charity Commission and ask them to investigate. They are responsible for the regulation of charities in England and Wales – Manchester Pride and the Lesbian and Gay Foundation are both registered charities and are both in breach of regulations, good practice and general fair standards.

You can AVOID buying a wristband (although this is up to you and many people still chose to) for Manchester Pride’s big weekend. You’ll be saving yourself anywhere between £10 and £18 and by doing so making a personal protest at the unfair way the charity funding is distributed. After all that’s the main reason we’re told you need a wristband to enter the gay village in the first place right?).

You can make donations directly to the charities you support. You don’t have to give money to Manchester Pride to support the wide range of other good causes that exist in Greater Manchester and beyond. Why should we have to pay for unnecessary operating costs for an event that was previously free when in order to ensure good causes get a penny?

Attend the HIV/AIDS Candle Lit Vigil on the closing night of Manchester Pride in Sackville Gardens, it is a FREE event. Not having a wristband doesn’t mean you can’t  get in – or so we are led to believe. But year on year people who go along to remember their loved ones and pay their respects are turned away from the event by security guards. Tim Pickstone of Manchester Pride’s board went on BBC Radio Manchester last year claiming this is not true (a blatant lie) and made it quite clear entry to the “George House Trust Vigil” is totally free. Days later he was proven wrong and people were turned away yet again in 2008. You need to make a fuss and DEMAND they let you in in 2009 – if you are refused entry to the vigil we’d like to hear from you – especially if you have any photos or videos of being turned away from what is meant to be a free event, your event.

Avoid the gated prison that is the gay village and still have an enjoyable Manchester Pride 2009. Alternative events are taking place at a number of venues which don’t require you to purchase a wristband or enter the over-priced cattle market that canal street will become. Details of these mostly FREE, non-commercial events will be posted online in August by KaffeeQueeria, Pride is a Protest and by groups at Manchester LGBT Centre.

If you know of anything else happening get in touch.

DIVA editor attacks Peter Tatchell

Editor of Lesbian lifestyle magazine DIVA Jane Czyzselska (who has also written for the Horse and Hound!) with help from fellow pen pusher Ben Summerskill of “gay equality group” Stonewall have dedicated an entire page in the Guardian’s Comment is Free to launching a rather scathing and hollow attack on fellow trooper Peter Tatchell entitled “Take Pride in Gay Respectability”.

She has decided to compare the likes of money-mad Stonewall to the legendary American gay rights personality and the subject of a new Hollywood film – Harvey Milk.  She believes “if he were alive now he’d be rooting for more “smug marrieds” – meaning complacent gays and lesbians who sit on the fence when it comes to the rights.

In reality, if Harvey Milk were alive today he would notice how different the world is. He won’t be sitting smug in a swanky office on London’s Southbank. He’d be wondering why married doesn’t mean civil partnered and why police still spend vast resources on persecuting gay men who have sex in the woods. He’d be questioning why an organisation named Stonewall, has consistently alienated so many marginalised groups he spent his life (and eventually was killed fighting for both within the LGBT Community on it’s fringe such as sex workers.

Harvey Milk was heavily involved in the founding of many frontline, radicalised activist movements including the San Francisco Coalition on Prostitution, one of the first such “sex-workers unions” in the world. Yet it’s European cousin which still exists today was protesting in unison with angry transgender people outside the Stonewall Awards only last November in protest at the nomination of Julie Bindel (another controversial Guardian Comment is Free journalist).

He’d be asking why the annual turnover of the LGBT voluntary sector in Britain is just £10 million – with about 20% of that going into Stonewall’s wallet with the remaining estimated 1,500 other LGBT groups left to fight for the rest. This may sound like a lot of money the size of the pot available to LGBT community groups – the type of organisations pioneered by queer activists such as Harvey Milk in the 1960’s and 70’s equates to just 0.03% of the income of the entire charitable sector.

It’s also worth pointing out that Czyzelska’s employers Millivres Prowler Group are one of Stonewall’s biggest private sponsors. According to it’s chairman, Chris Graham Bell the company “has historic roots in gay and lesbian rights campaigning and has strong values and beliefs regarding the support of civil rights for our community.”Offering more proof of private business interfering with an apparently independent lobby group.

Even though Summerskill already has his own regular column in the same newspaper, in which he often makes similar attacks on Peter Tatchell and grassroots campaigning this week Stonewall’s highest paid member of staff was given another opportunity to dismiss the work of pretty much anyone who isn’t in the gay rights game for the money. As Jane Czyzelska’s article starts off it quickly descends into appearing to be a platform for Stonewall’s work and yet another outlet for Summerskill and his gay mafia friends to make false claims about the success of their work.

The picture Summerskill paints of his “radicalism” is a fraud. What he describes isn’t radicalism, it’s fraud. Note his nod to the “radicalism”of companies in the FTSE 100. Many of these big players in the stock-market along with a number of institutionally homophobic institutions recently did paid Stonewall in excess of £1,500 in exchange for a place in the group’s own prestigious “stock-market of inequality”.

Stonewall’s work with young people around homophobic bullying gets a regular cash boost from it’s annual “Equality Dinner” where wealthy members of the public make donations in return for spending an evening with celebrities at the Dorchester Hotel. What a shame this cash isn’t reaching the places that really need it.

In August 2008 Stonewall received criticism from the gay community in Liverpool after it failed to speak out after the homophobic murder of gay teenager Michael Causer. In October a planned recruitment day in Liverpool run by Stonewall for the youth volunteering project mentioned in Czyzelska’s article had to be canceled because hardly anyone had registered. The local gay youth group “GYRO” which recently launched it’s own homophobic bullying resources complained they weren’t even told about the event. Another questionable claim made in the article is that Stonewall has seen it’s “active” supporters double and them under 30 is higher than ever causing Czyzelska to blindly state “this is hardly a sign of apathy and complacency”. The truth is – lending one’s support to an organisation like the Stonewall of today is exactly that – apathy and a sign of being complacent. Czyzelska her self describes Stonewall of representing “apathetic conformity” at the start of her article.

Summerskill has a rather contorted view of what activism is. According to Summerskill activism is either “politicised” (the camp he places the likes of Peter Tatchell firmly in) or “smug” (much like himself) – but argues both are equally as radical.

He may well be right, but the terminology is wrong, and it’s designed to confuse people.

Most people will hear the word “political” in this way and instantly assume he’s talking about smiley politicians and out of touch political parties – boring, moaning, infighting and lacking in integrity. But in truth Stonewall itself and those who founded it (Labour Party activists) are no less political, and probably more so.

“Politics” is close to Stonewall’s heart. It courts with representatives of all parties inviting them to debate gay issues whilst leaving fringe activists standing out in the cold like it did at it’s recent Awards ceremony at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum.

Tony Blair was the guest of honour at last year’s Stonewall Equality fund-raiser. Ben Summerskill himself used to be a Labour politician. His predecessor, Angela Mason now works for the Labour government as the Director of the Women and Equality Unit. It is Stonewall who are in the politicised camp that has a narrow agenda not set by the community they work for but political think tanks and business men with lots of opinions.

Most of the “radicals” he tries so hard to tarnish through his use of clever wording are grassroots campaigners who focus on thorny issues Stonewall itself finds hard to grasp (and it’s financial backers wouldn’t touch with a barge pole) such as transphobia, laws around sexual offenses and international human rights abuses (which Stonewall’s funders such as Barclays Bank and Lloyds TSB have been accused of providing finance to).

While Stonewall are leaving by the back door of Lloyds TSB with a nice fat suitcase of money, the real Human Rights activists are banging down the front door in anger at the bank’s decision to block money going to humanitarian charities based in Gaza. This year Stonewall decided to put Lloyds TSB at the very top of it’s “Diversity Champions” index.

No wonder Ben Summerskill just loves brandishing his knife at the real activists like Peter Tatchell who not only tackle domestic issues without asking for the world on the plate, but also around the world. OutRage! has stood up for the human rights of LGBT people in Palestine. Whilst Stonewall smug in to bed with the perpetrators of human rights abuses., happily taking the cash and doing whatever their master tells them – there’s a name for that.

Although she makes many valid points and even provides some balance in her padding of yet another out of touch Summerskill rant, as Czyzelska implies in the title and as the 80’s pop duo once Mel and Kim once sung, – “we ain’t never gonna be respectable”

– well Jane we don’t need your respect any more than Harvey Milk need buy your trashy magazine.

Seeing Red: Corrupt AIDS Charities

When it comes to the AIDS debate, battle lines were drawn long ago.

Arguments around the ethical behaviour of drug companies, governments and even non-for-profit AIDS charities have split the gay community down the middle.

Critics of lethal medications prescribed to fight a mystery virus that many are told will one day make them sick and die have been chased out of the very community organisations they founded in order to support their loved ones during the peak of the “AIDS crisis”.

Those with first hand experience of the heavy handed, self-righteous behaviour of their once-loved HIV/AIDS support groups have been fighting back against a propaganda war of smear, misinformation, censorship, and commercial and charitable fraud on an international scale.

During the the late 1980’s and early 1990’s a vast number of HIV charities were set up around the UK by the families and friends of AIDS sufferers in order to provide better services for those suffering from the condition. But in recent times these organisations have been infiltrated by a small and impenetrable clique of NHS bully-boys and faceless men in suits – the representatives pharmaceutical giants who now sponsor these mammoth exercises in public charity fraud.

Around three years ago an anonymous blogger who goes by the name of “plusman” has been consistently exposing in precision detail just how this has happened to one such charity in Manchester, England named “Body Positive”.

Now it appears these big boys of the drug making world are so in bed with the likes of Body Positive they are sponsoring their everyday operations. In October 2008 the charity announced via Body Positive’s website and newsletter it was proud to be launching a “photographic competition” to celebrate GlaxoSmithKline’s 21^st anniversary of providing HIV treatment. Treatments which have included the controversial AZT amongst many others which activists argue are even more toxic than the HIV virus itself. The prize for the winner of this competition?

The eventual winner was awarded £5,000 cash – although the winner must then donate the money to an “HIV charity of their choice” courtesy of GlaxoSmithKline. The lucky charity turned out to be GMFA (gay men fighting AIDS). Along with over a dozen other major drug manufacturers who all supply HIV medications to the NHS at the highest price paid by any country in the western world most of these companies also provide significant funds to the majority of the charities. So you can understand why staff are reluctant to stamp out the slightest utterance of criticism leveled at the hand which feeds them.

Despite all the lawsuits against GlaxoSmithKline and the predecessor companies it eventually swallowed up in relation to the ongoing scandal that is AZT, decades of evidence continue to mount up– and “AIDS Charities” which include Gay Men Fighting AIDS and Body Positive plus dozens of others continue to censor public discussion on the issue even from their own service users, the same people they have blindly convinced taking AZT (and still are) could save their lives which in turn leads to their death as a result of it’s deadly side affects.

Today, most HIV-positive people receiving treatment on the NHS are prescribed combination therapy of anti-retroviral drugs.

The most common mixture consists of three medications one of which is AZT and the other drugs are close relatives with similar properties. People are STILL taking these drugs despite the warning issued to doctors in 1999 by GlaxoSmithKline and which is still included in very small print on the warning leaflet which reads:

“PROLONGED USE OF RETROVIR (AZT) HAS ALSO BEEN ASSOCIATED WITH SYMPTOMATIC MYOPATHY (AIDS) SIMILAR TO THAT PRODUCED BY HUMAN IMMUNODEFICIENCY VIRUS.”

Although they may have been modified to have slower, slightly less toxic affects over the years when compared to the original formulation of AZT, these drugs themselves can and do cause AIDS. Drug companies urge the public to report any side effects as a matter of priority (via the AIDS charities) so in effect what we are seeing is the evolution of the same type of mass human guinea pig experiment that continues to be unleashed on the public, particularly on gay men. The relatives of those who die even though their loved ones had been taking HIV medications and felt perfectly healthy are told the death is AIDS related, not as a result of “advanced HIV infection”. Any attribution of blame to the possible side-effects (as the warning above describes) is dismissed.

Service users held a protest outside
Body Positive North West in Manchester
on 16th Jan 2009 in anger at the way
the charity is currently being run.
Two weeks earlier the charity began offering
a controversial instant HIV testing service.

Unfortunately the plot thickens even 15 years after AZT was introduced. Body Positive recently began offering free “one minute instant HIV testing” at a number of bars in Manchester’s Gay Village, primarily targeting gay men.

Only six months earlier over the pond in New York City half of those who took an almost identical “rapid mouth swab test” received false-positive results. Needless to say, those who manufactured and sold these instant tests for public use pocketed the money and continue to market similar “instant HIV tests” under new branding.

So why are groups like Body Positive so keen to guilt-trip the public into getting an HIV test in this dubious manner?

• When adequate counseling is not provided to help people deal with the consequences of having an HIV test.
• When those they target are likely to be intoxicated at the time.
• Despite many “instant” testing procedures are riddled with failures still requires a visit in person to a fully equipped clinic in order to confirm and then reconfirm the result anyway.

“By offering instant tests and counseling, this odious bunch can instantly capture new service users, when they’re at their most vulnerable, and thereby secure additional funding.” One former service user offers a valid explanation over on Plusman’s blog (Beware! Think twice before having an HIV test at Body Positive North West).

If having the infamous red AIDS ribbon an integral part of it’s corporate branding wasn’t enough for them, as an further insult to those who challenge the current HIV dogma they perpetuate and the memory of those who have died as a direct result from the toxic side effects of HIV medications, Body Positive have adopted the “Green Ribbon” (also the symbol of Rethinking AIDS Day on April 23^rd) as their symbol for this new fraudulent testing service.

Body Positive aren’t alone in this dubious practice. The Lesbian and Gay Foundation regularly visit gay saunas in the North West of England offering HIV and Sexual Health testing and their London-based counterparts the Terrance Higgins Trust also offer a similar “outreach service”. Their argument is that if gay and bisexual men don’t access their services in these types of settings such as saunas and bars where men are known to meet for sex then they never will.

If you’ve had yourself a cheeky sniff of Poppers or a few Ecstasy pills and a maybe few pints earlier that evening then chances are your immune system has already taken a battering, and your mental state may also be a little wobbly to say the least. Are these really the most ethical and responsible (let alone hygienic!) places to be literally begging vulnerable people to take an HIV test?

Labour MP Harriet Harman poses for a photo opportunity at Body Positive, the
target of protests by angry service users.
Similar protests against corrupt AIDS
charities and their stance on
pushing toxic treatments and ineffective testing
practices continue around the world.

Here at GayMafiaWatch, we recently exposed how the Lesbian and Gay Foundation along with their friends at the George House Trust have been colluding with the manufacturers of “Poppers” and the producers of “Bareback” porn that glorifies unsafe sex. Down at your local sauna where (somewhere between the sling, the glory hole and the sewage strewn steam room) once a month you may find the occasional “LGF Sexual Health Outreach Clinic”.

Even though their efforts are failing considering the “dramatic rise in gay men diagnosed with HIV” – often in the same areas they concentrate their work, these organisations are swamping the gay community with similar guilt inducing “testing is not a choice” propaganda yet they all fail to take into account the consequences and situational context which can have a drastic affect on the emotional well-being of the participant and even the outcome of the actual test itself.

Public health professionals and poorly-informed, under-trained volunteers are behaving like zombies, urging HIV positive people to “commence treatment as soon as possible” even if they aren’t sick despite the indisputable possibility that HIV treatments are part responsible for unnecessary-like deaths. This helps to increase the funds they receive from the Drug Companies and in turn their profit margins. Having such a powerful influence on our community is having an effect, you can see it everywhere. AIDS-related profiteering scandals, cover-ups and censorship are at the heart of the corruption that is ravaging the entire gay community, just like AIDS there’s no cure in sight, just yet.

Even if you don’t really care about asking critical questions yourself and you’re not yet convinced by the arguments you’ve read here today, it’s hard to deny that there is an active assault on the intelligence and dignity of those of us who do. People who question the current AIDS doctrine are branded as dangerous extremists, assumed to be HIV positive in denial and even threatened with the prospect of dying a painful threatened with the prospect of dying a painful death.

One vicious anti-dissident blog even appeals to members of the public for information so that it can smear those who write articles such as this one which reads:

“If you know any outstanding warrants or actual criminal reports about our infamous AIDS dissidents, please post it here! Please post the URL where you discovered the “dirt”.” (posted as AIDS Dissidents are Convicted Criminals – even though they haven’t yet any evidence explain why).

The impartiality of this particular blogger becomes shakier when you notice how the site is littered in adverts for various dating sites such as HivDate.com, commercial enterprises that profit from HIV directly by offering to connect positive people with other positive people. Similarly, various blogs attempting to deny the link between the use of Poppers proceed to explain their argument shortly whilst at the same time providing advertising space for the products. For the record, you won’t see any such advertising here on GayMafiaWatch.

Remember, the truth always comes out. Those concerned with finding out the truth about AIDS (rather than spending masses amounts of money and time smearing and silencing them) are convinced more research and unbiased education will ensure it does sooner rather than later.

“We do not ‘err’ because truth is difficult to see.
It is visible at a glance. – We ‘err’ because this is more comfortable.”
–Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Recommended Reading
‘AIDS; The HIV myth’ – Jad Adams, Macmillan London UK, St. Martin’s Press New York USA (1989)
‘Positively False; Exposing the myths around HIV and AIDS’ – Joan Shenton, I.B. Tauris, London (1998)
‘The Origin, Persistence and Failings of HIV/AIDS Theory’ – Dr. Henry Bauer (2007)
‘Ten Lies about AIDS’ – Etienne De Harven, M.D, Trafford Publishing 2008

Useful Websites
ReThinking AIDS
The Group for the Scientific Reappraisal of the HIV/AIDS Hypothesis
AidsMyth
Exploring Myths about the HIV Virus
Alt Heal
Global views of current criticism of International AIDS policy
Heal London
For those questioning the orthodox version of HIV/AIDS

Related articles by GayMafiaWatch
Elton John: Libel Queen
Plenty of other gay men are dropping dead, but unfortunately this talentless piano strummer known as Elton John is still standing right next to his “AIDS Foundation”. After the charity was recently critisised by a national newspaper we explore how Elton mounted and then failed miserable in his attempt to silence the truth about what’s really going on at his little enterprise set up to profit from the AIDS scam.
Stonewalled?
Inventing Homophobia, Manipulating the Media and Masonic Connections
Series of ongoing articles about the UK-based gay rights group “Stonewall”.
Blood Money
what exactly is one of Britain’s biggest, most well funded biggest gay health charities decided to throw in some free advertising for gay escort websites that promote bareback porn worshiping unsafe sex acts via their monthly magazine. – You just couldn’t make it up if you tried!

Manchester City Council in Gay Vote Scandal

Another week and yet another “gay awards scheme” appears to be attracting some dubious nominations.

Last month the Stonewall Awards in London sparked an angry protest from the transgender community and a major celebrity split after a bigoted journalist was nominated.  Heres more proof that the “old boys network” is alive and well in Manchester…

About a week ago Terry Waller, “Lead Officer for Gay Men’s Issues” at Manchester City Council sent out an email requesting people to vote for gay men’s social group run by the LGF “Icebreakers” for a Pink Paper Readers Award (they happened to be last year’s winners). The email went onto say – “Maybe you’ll also nominate our friends at The LGF, Taurus, 40 plus  and Northern Wave too.”

After your money AGAIN!.. - the Lesbian and Gay Foundation

Read our article “The Truth about where your wristband money really went” which explains how together they conspired to ripped off Manchester’s long suffering LGBT Community last year by making multiple funding bids for the same organisation under different names and therefore siphoning off the funding into one big fat pot.

Whilst we have no objection to the claim that that the groups and businesses being promoted are just as worthy candidates to win an award as any other and no doubt provide excellent services to the community but the question must be asked- why is Manchester City Council participating in the unfair influence of a democratic process by sending this request to its entire LGBT mailing list? Other groups hoping to be nominated may also be reminding their supporters to vote for them but this is a council mailing list which includes people who are neither Pink Paper Readers and who most likely have never heard of or used the services of this cliquey list of “friends” the email is suggesting people nominate and vote for.

This use of the mailing mailing list in this manner is clearly biased an inappropriate, its completely unfair to other worthy groups and businesses and it smacks of favoritism. Taurus, the Lesbian and Gay Foundation (who run Icebreakers, the 40+ Group and Northern Wave Swimming Group) and Manchester City Council are all heavily in bed with the controversial Manchester Pride – also nominated for an award.

Terry Waller claims this request is purely “information we have been asked to distribute” however previous attempts by other organisations not connected to funded by Manchester City Council have failed to be distributed are frequently ignored. Although his mail shots are sometimes useful and informative they rarely contain anything other than more promotional extracts from the Lesbian and Gay Foundation or Manchester Pride –  which have plenty of more direct and dedicated means of contacting the community.

Shameless!

Manchester Pride Ticket £15
Squishing Criticism – Priceless!

Manchester City Council and “friends” at the Launch of Manchester Pride 2008. Together they have sent requests to a public city council mailing list to canvass support in order to swing the vote in favour of their organisations in this year’s Pink Paper Awards.

Despite causing so much anger and controversy within the community, GayMafiaWatch has heard Manchester Pride has been nominated for a Pink Paper Award too.

Jackie Crozier, Director of Manchester Pride. Famous for her Gestapo-like appearance in this revealing video when she attempted to confiscate placards in the Pride Parade because they read “Pride Not Profit”.

Andrew (“Drew”) Stokes, Chair of Manchester Pride and Director of “Marketing Manchester”. Read about how he misled the public over Pride’s attendance figures promoting a probe by Trading Standards.

Pink Haired Mavis, Lord Mayor of Manchester. She didn’t really have a clue what was going on. This blogger has more photos with the poor mayor looking even more shocked as organisers try to cover up their actions.

Mike “Polly” Pollard, Proprietor of Canal Street bar Taurus and representing the Village Business Association (VBA). Three weeks after this photo was taken the VBA’s chair Phil Burke resigned from the Board of Manchester Pride accusing the council of putting “Pounds before Poofs”

Cllr Paul Fairweather, founding member and supporter of the Lesbian and Gay Foundation the charity where GayMafiaWatch has uncovered a lot of dirty dealings along with the George House Trust – another dodgy charity you can read about in this blog

…the big cover-up Moments after the above photo was taken…. Protesters descend on the Pride Officials and Lord Mayor The protest group “Pride is a Protest” claims it has been shamefully airbrushed out of the official pride photos.

Pink Washed!

In this photo you can clearly see how a sign being held by a protester in the back of the photo outside Manchester Town hall taken shortly after saying “Queer Liberation Now” has been airbrushed in black out by Manchester Pride. A Pink “Pride Not Profit” Banner in the far right corner has also been obscured. Watch a video of the protest at the Manchester Pride Launch

If it’s not clear to you what Manchester Pride is all about, they have made it clear what its not about by doing this.

As Manchester Pride came to a close at end of August 2008, Phil Burke (who was missing from the above photos) Chair of the Village Business Association (VBA) resigned from the board of Manchester Pride in frustration and declared “Manchester Pride is a marketing event run by ‘dictators’ “. It made the front page of the Manchester Evening News later that day where he continued to speak out and claimed “Manchester Pride is Purely a Commercial Operation“.

Dozens of other small businesses, charities and community groups and local councilors of all parties have since spoken out in support of Mr Burke including Body Positive, Cruz 101, The Rembrandt, Eden, AXM Group, LGBT History Month. Queer Youth Network, OutRage! and the NUS LGBT Campaign.

In October 2008, UNISON (the largest of all the trade unions) voted at it’s recent LGBT conference to condemn the actions of Manchester Pride and has agreed not to provide it with sponsorship to the event next year.