Auckland City Does Not Need A Gay Street Party

I’m not going to put my foot in my mouth straight away however I seem need to raise the question of does the gay community really need to pursue some sort of Mardi Gras in Auckland City.

After a meeting yesterday evening it would appear there were and are a large number of parade enthusiasts supporting this concept. Which I guess is typical really considering us gay people like a good party.

The idea of a gay street parade is fabulous, which is the exact reason why so many of us fly to Sydney Australia every year to take part in one of the biggest gay street parties in the world. Does Auckland city really want to attempt to reconstruct something similar when it is not going to be half as big or successful?

The Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras to my knowledge is not funded by the government, yet this new gay parade movement in Auckland has pretty much agreed that this sizeable event will need financial backing from the Auckland City Council.

I want so badly to be able to say that this new concept is a great idea, however it is already done so well right across the ditch and I do not see how the council could justify throwing money into a big gay party when there are kids that do not have shoes, rain jackets or lunch to eat at school yet here we are worrying about our big glamorous council funded parade.

Apparently a study undertaken by Auckland University produced numbers that this venture could attract up to 50 million dollars into the city. To begin with I highly doubt this figure but more so if it is such the money maker then why does the community not self fund and raise the money for this event as there will be ways to make the cost back..

The Hero Parade died for a reason, because it was over, done and dusted, we now have pumping gay bays and gays in every club, why now do we need to take this to the street?

More so we already have Gay Day, Out Takes and a number of other great events that cater to our needs, in fact there is something going on almost every month.

I am gay and I would be more interested in seeing any money that Auckland City Council would potentially give this concept being redirected towards the youth of Auckland and the poor in Auckland city that really need it and not to a group of people that want a bunch of money spent so that we can parade up and down a street while kids starve because we decided to act like Chris Carter and worry more about a glamorous street party than being socially conscious.

The concept is great, however it is being done already so close to us far bigger and better than we could ever achieve and considering these economic times and the hardships that every day New Zealanders are going through, this compared to that just seems like a ridiculous waste of money.

ends

© Scoop Media