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The Sun’s Sue-Ann and Scrawler Vs Toronto Pride
But the real question is why didn't the Dyke Marchers make the homophobic pastor feel more included and welcomed?
For someone who has so much hard-wired contempt for the city’s annual Pride Parade, Toronto Sun columnist Sue-Ann Levy certainly spent a lot of time thinking about it over the weekend, knocking out Hot Take after Hot Take, changing tactics every few hours, even if that meant taking positions that cancelled out the arguments she put forth in previous columns, hoping one of them would stick.
The fun started last Friday when Levy issued a dire, Cassandra-esque prophecy that attendance would be way down for this year’s festivities, based on some very compelling evidence: she interviewed two self-described longtime parade attendees who claimed they would not be going this year due to Pride accommodating Black Lives Matter’s demands to exclude uniformed police officers from marching in the parade:
This Sunday’s Pride parade will be the first in 22 years in which Brian Provini will not be marching.
The 70-year-old gay man told me Friday he plans not only to boycott the Pride parade but he and his partner won’t even be walking Church St., which is closed to car traffic through the weekend.
He says many of his friends are leaving the city for the weekend or avoiding the Gay Village or, like him, attending a small celebratory BBQ on Sunday.
Provini says he’s also heard from some of his American friends that they have decided to bypass Toronto and attend Pride festivities in Montreal this year. This has become more of reality (sic), he says, since they heard Toronto police have been banned from the parade and instead, a contingent of uniformed Toronto officers will be joining this Sunday’s New York City Pride parade.
The retired community college professor is heartsick with what has happened to Pride.
“I’m very disappointed,” he said. “I’ve been calling this a Black Lives Matter (BLM) Toronto Pride event…I don’t consider this Pride.
“People don’t feel right about attending…it’s not the right atmosphere this year.”
Levy, still steaming mad at the lily-livered liberals at City Hall for not withholding their annual grant to Pride over their “discrimination” against the inclusion of the police, went confidently down to the Parade on Sunday, possibly expecting an abandoned streetscape not unlike the first act of the film 28 Days Later, only to discover the streets lined with parade-watchers and partygoers, as usual. Her Sunday night piece, “Cop Ban Sours Good Pride Party,” begrudgingly admits there was a good turnout, although she did see some “gaps” along the way, including this gaping one she put up on Twitter:
Levy opens this piece with her frustration that the country’s Prime Minister made an appearance along the parade route:
After spending the first hour of Sunday’s Pride parade watching Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wave in his phony mannequin-like style to the crowds, I’d had enough.
PM Selfie had already said something suitably vacuous about “celebrating inclusivity” and “respect for each other,” clearly not caring how silly he sounded given that banning all Toronto police and all forces around the province from marching — courtesy of Black Lives Matter-Toronto (BLM-Toronto) — isn’t what I’d call inclusive or respectful.
A few blunt paragraphs later, Levy, who situated herself next to an on-duty police officer (who apparently received dozens of supportive comments from other pro-police attendees), credits Trudeau’s security detail with giving her the only discomfort she felt during the day:
As a gay woman I certainly didn’t feel “vulnerable” or “threatened” standing beside the constable, who deals with domestic violence cases out of 42 Division.
For heaven’s sake, I found the security detail and the media relations woman working for PM Selfie far more intimidating.
Some may be not be surprised that a journalist who routinely calls the Prime Minister of Canada “PM Selfie” was not able to get past his security and media handlers during a public event, but the arrival of Black Lives Matter protesters who turned up towards the tail end of the parade inspired a follow-up Sun column from Levy mere hours later entitled “When The Rules Don’t Matter,” where she took BLM to task for not paying the entry fee to join the march:
Thanks to our weak-willed politicians at City Hall and to the complicit Pride Toronto board, we should all be adopting the slogan, “Rules Don’t Matter” from now on.
At least they don’t to the Black Lives Matter-Toronto (BLM) contingent which crashed the Pride parade Sunday.
Not only did they insert themselves at the tail end of the three-hour parade — without registering or paying the required fee — but they did so sporting black veils (for dramatic effect) and carrying saucy, placards like “May we never again have to remind you that WE BUILT THIS” and better yet, stating that they shut down last year’s parade for everyone.
Sue-Ann’s outrage that Black Lives Matter wound up marching in the Pride Parade after all is contradicted by her June 3 Sun column, “BLM Won’t March In This Year’s Pride Parade,” wherein she scolded BLMTO for insulting the organizers by failing to register to participate even though Pride had “bent over backwards” to accommodate their demands:
And what has BLM done? Slapping everyone who kowtowed to them in the face, they’ve opted not to march this year.
I repeat, the group at the centre of this inane maelstrom, will not be marching in the parade on June 25.
Efforts to reach Nuamah and her PR flak Ryan Connelly were unsuccessful Saturday. Perhaps they’ve run for cover.
But BLM is not listed as participants on their website, not as far as the main parade is concerned. Pride does not list the participants in the #ResistDykeMarch, so perhaps that’s where they’ll spew their hate.
All I can say is game, set, match to BLM.
You would think Sue-Ann would at least be impressed that BLM stiffed Pride for the entry fee, as nothing makes her angrier than Pride receiving any kind of money (especially public money) but again, some people aren’t happy unless they’re not happy.
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Photo by Devin Jones for Torontoist.
Levy’s fellow Sun scribe, Night Scrawler Joe Warmington, also weighed in with his critiques of Pride with his Saturday night article “Pastor Turns Up The Heat At Dyke March,” chronicling the virtuous struggles of a man of the cloth who attempted to save some lives from eternal damnation and was also “discriminated” against just for expressing “freedom of speech”:
Inclusion didn’t mean Pastor Scott Park at the Dyke March Saturday felt included.
But holding a sign up saying “God Loves You, Repent and come to Jesus” draws attention.
Standing on the south-east corner of Carlton and Church Sts., it created such a scene that Toronto Police had settle things down.
“They (a couple of women) ripped my sign and tried to grab my neck,” said Park.
He didn’t budge.
Even with a torn sign that left a lot of the message unseen, he remained as police officers on bikes surrounded him and protected his right to free speech.
Most of the rest of the thousands of Dyke March participants just ignored him and his sign, but some challenged him.
“So, are you saying because I’m lesbian, I need to repent my sins?” asked one woman.
“No, I am a sinner as well, and Jesus is there for us,” he said.
“So, would you go to another event and hold that sign?” she said.
“Yes,” said Scott, adding however, “Try to assault me” before (sic).
On the parade day itself, Scrawler’s Twitter account took a short break from its usual format of retweeting pro-Trump, anti-Islam comments from alt-right/InfoWars luminaries to chronicle the Downfall of Western Civilization first-hand by photographing nude parade attendees (apparently without their permission) and finding incriminating evidence of litter on the ground during a parade, including…condom boxes, retweeting some negative responses to the parade along the way…