Turkish Pride: Every Cloud...

Police in Turkey have been left red-faced after their attempts to block a Pride parade helped to celebrate the occasion.

The officers were using water cannon to clear the peaceful parade in Istanbul when the water droplets caught the sunlight and branched across the sky in a rainbow.

Pride across the world uses a rainbow as its representative colours, on flags and more, giving a clear association with the LGBT community...

The Mirror's rather, err, different take on Istanbul Pride yesterday where police attacked marchers with water cannon, rubber bullets and tear gas.

Most of the Western media were baffled as to why they were attacked - usually settling for 'Dunno, something about Ramadan?'

But a reporter for AFP News said; 'Police took action against the crowd when demonstrators began shouting slogans accusing the social conservative President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of "fascism".'

PS Barclays - sponsor of Pride In London. Investor in Raytheon and General Dynamics, makers of arms and 'civil defense' stuff. Big in Turkey...

Update: Please see Paul Canning's blogpost on this; New LGBT Muslim Heroes.

Pride In London: The Day In One Photo

At the start of the march parade a man is wrestled to the ground by police - assisted by Pride stewards - and arrested for shouting at the contingent from Barclays about their company's tax avoidance.

Other stewards and security tried to stop people and media from taking photos.

Barclays were a main sponsor of Pride In London and led the parade today - the spot had been offered to Lesbians And Gays Support The Miners, but they were later pushed further to the back.

* Photo by Jules Mattsson. x

Edit: The Sunday Mirror has mobile phone footage of the end of his 'altercation' with the police [Edit: Oops! Jules Mattsson took it]. He gets a little more, shall we say, 'rowdy' than I thought. Hmm...

Here's a nice picture of a jolly copper showing how much he loves the gays in case there's any confusion...

Pride: How So?

Gay Star News.

Why shouldn't they?

The gay right likes to demonise Ukip, as if to prove they themselves are not right-wing.

'Theys donut like teh gaymarriage!'

Like it's the worst of their racist cunty platform.

And the pointless manically depressive funfest London Pride - like Gay Star News - is bankrolled by the far worse Barclays; big time convicted corporate crooks and arms dealers.

Why do you expect them to be moral agents or some compass of ideological purity?

Tweets Of The Day: Barclays - Investors In Pride And Death

Barclays confirmed as headline sponsor for Pride in London festival | Gay Star News http://t.co/dhNofACamZ
— Barclays Spectrum (@barclayspectrum) April 23, 2015

#stopbarclays activists are at the @Barclays agm today, protesting the banks arms trade links pic.twitter.com/WDjZCGS1DF
— CAAT (@CAATuk) April 23, 2015

See also: How Wall Street came out on gay marriage, Mail Online via Reuters, and After Indiana debacle, states are showing off their LGBT-friendliness, AdWeek.

Update: Harvey Milk quit working on Wall Street for gay activism, Lance seems to be doing the reverse...

.@DLanceBlack will join us at #MIGlobal to explore the key role of American business in the #LGBT rights movement. http://t.co/ZOKXEpBhTQ
— Milken Institute (@MilkenInstitute) April 24, 2015

Dustin's even endorsing this junk, the British LGBT Awards!

Gay Star News: Shocking Pink Self-Awareness Bypass

Pink paint was thrown over two police stations and three banks in Auckland Monday (23 February) night in a second 'pinkwashing' attack.

Queers Against Injustice claimed responsibility for a similar vandal attack on a GAYTM last week.

The group accused ANZ of commercializing [sic] LGBTI rights after the bank covered four ATMs with rhinestones and renamed them GAYTMs.

'Pinkwashing: describes the way that institutions co-opt LGBT struggles to distract from and disguise unethical behaviour,' posters left at the banks read...

Gay Star News.

May 16 2014.

One of at least ten undeclared advertorial puff pieces Gay Star News have run about Barclays.

I have asked GSN editor Tris Reid Smith how much they were paid for each of these, but he hasn't got back to me yet.

Perhaps he was out of the office today schmoozing another potential corporate pimp?

Update...

Hi Richard,

I heard you had been ill – if so I hope you are feeling better.

We have done commercial work with Barclays but by no means everything we have done about them has been paid for. We don't normally discuss the figures involved.

Happy to talk about this further to give you a proper, full response but I don't think I have your number. My contact details are below.

Thanks,

Tris

PS Tristram would not confirm they got paid £2,000 a pop.

Gay Star News: Penny For The Gay, Sir?

Whilst it's good Gay Star News brings attention to this patronising and pointless initative, who else but GSN still says 'poor people'?

You can take the gay man out of the public school, but...

Gawd bless you, sir, can I have an unpaid internship, whilst you cream even more money off Barclays...

What is it they pay you? Two grand an (undeclared) ad?

Brighton Pride: You Are Welcome

In a statement, which they clearly didn't write themselves but we'll pretend they did, David Cameron, Nick Clegg, Ed Miliband, Caroline Lucas, Nick Griffin and Nigel Farage have all expressed their support for Brighton Pride.

'Brighton Pride is good,' they said. 'Good Brighton Pride is. I have absolutely no objections to you people walking from one place to another. This shows the wonderful, colourful vibrancy that makes Hull Brighton such a great place to work on a minimum wage.'

'I would like to take this opportunity to thank myself for fighting so hard in your battle for equality.'

'Thank you and god bless'.

My local Tesco gets into the spirit!

Top gay-friendly corporate crooks Barclays have really pushed the boat out!

PS Good to see Sussex Police and Brighton & Hove Council aren't taking any chances over those radical queer beach BBQs.

Photography: Two Men Kissing In A Photobooth In 1953

From Vintage Everyday via the hilarious @HomoPosts. x

Posted for no reason other than I love it.

These stolen kisses say more about gay pride than getting a crappy 'parade' sponsored by apartheid-backing arms dealers.

PS Barclays shown to be massive corporate crooks again. But don't worry, they love the gays!

#Freedomto: Spend Spend Spend!

Apparently Barclays has just put this up in central London for Pride.
Woop!
Could there be a more fitting visual metaphor for what Pride has become?
All cash, no point?
Note that if a casual passerby wasn't told, they probably wouldn't have the foggiest what this is for.
It just looks like typical banal 'feel good' adspeak but with brighter colours.
'Barclays Bank' is rhyming slang for 'wank', you know?

PS Barclays - nice people to do (gay) business with, or corporate crooks?

Buy at Pride with pride - brought to you by Barclaycard.

Barclays observers might think that slashing jobs or preserving sky-high pay have been two standout themes of the Jenkins era so far. But behind the reinvention of Barclays to suit a tougher regulatory regime that will see a severe slimming-down of its trading activities there has also been a concerted effort to redraw its culture. Chief among that is treating customers better and making money in a responsible way — cue sniggers after its latest fine, for £26 million, when one of Barclays’ traders was discovered attempting to fix the price of gold.

While Jenkins forecasts it could take five to 10 years to restore the reputation of the bank, its reputation as a diverse employer has already won plaudits, not least from campaigning group Stonewall. Barclays’ Spectrum network for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) staff has 3,000 members. The bank ran the British finance industry’s first transgender-awareness event at its Canary Wharf base, as well as becoming the first UK bank to feature a same-sex couple in one of its adverts...

London's Standard interview with Barclays' CEO Antony Jenkins on 'why the bank is the headline sponsor of Pride in London'. So fawning and uncritical it could have run in Gay Star News.

Out Readers' Awards: But First A Word From Our Sponsors...

Don't forget it's the first Out In The City Readers' Awards at some swanky London hotel tonight.
Though Fagburn would be surprised if many readers would have heard of many of the nominees.
You get the feeling editorial staff didn't have much say in the choices, and wonder what purpose it's really meant to serve. 
Still, at least the sponsors include some genuine household names.
RBS - After we've given them £45 billion in bailouts and the LIBOR scandal these guys have to be the best loved bank in Britain!

Barclays - They owe us billions through tax avoidance, invest a lot of that in the arms industry. and pay their most successful corporate crooks millions in bonuses alone, and they sure did a lot to support diversity in South Africa during the apartheid years.
Good to know these banks are putting their - okay, our - money to good use.
And don't forget those equal opportunity killers at the Royal Air Force.
Maybe our boys will get some of their sexy new drones to do a flyby tonight?
That's if they're not too busy killing kids in Afghanistan and Pakistan!
And remember, if they're sponsoring a gay awards event, that means they must really care.
More champagne? 

PS It's also Stonewall's Workplace Conference today - also "supported by Barclays".
Obviously it's nice if employers are encouraged to be nice to their LGBT employees, but why chummy up to organsations that do such nasty things to other people?
And maybe - just maybe - when some say they love The Gays it's more about trying to create good corporate PR.
Just ask that ex-PR man, David Cameron.

Barclay's Bank: So Big On Diversity They Even Like Bigots

This story appeared in the Sunday Express two days ago:

SOME of Britain’s leading banks and blue chip firms have been urged to withdraw their support from an awards event that brands the leader of the Catholic Church in Scotland a bigot for opposing gay marriage.

Cardinal Keith O’Brien has been nominated as equal rights charity Stonewall’s Bigot of the Year, with the recipient due to be announced at the Stonewall Awards ceremony next week.

So far, so predictable.
But it ended with this quote from Mark McLane, Barclays’ Director of Global Diversity and Inclusion:

“Let me be absolutely clear that Barclays does not support that award category either financially, or in principle and have informed Stonewall that should they decide to continue with this category we will not support this event in the future.”

Today this was picked up by various anti-gay websites, such as the Christian Institute, and Christian Voice (who may have created this Hurricane Sandy in a teacup - Barclay's had happily sponsored the awards for five years), who shouted Hosanna in the highest heavens at this (apparent) news. 
Oops!
The line seemed a rather incongruous thing for a "director of diversity" to say - and, moreover, it was in the Express, so I thought I'd check with Mark if he'd actually said it.
His PA sent me a letter he's written, to clarify his position, where he writes in conclusion;

"I have recently been made aware of the inclusion of a ‘Bigot of the Year’ category in the awards. Let me be absolutely clear that Barclays does not support that award category either financially, or in principle and have informed Stonewall that should they decide to continue with this category we will not support this event in the future. To label any individual so subjectively and pejoratively runs contrary to our view on fair treatment, and detracts from what should be a wholly positively focused event."

To which the only possible response is... eh?

PS Email me if you want the full text of the letter. You may also want to read War On Want's report Banking On Bloodshed. Or this, on Barclay's and the Libor rate-fixing scandal.
Nice people to do business with!

Update: I understand Stonewall have told Barclay's "Fine, goodbye then".

Update 2: Good piece by Archie Bland in Wednesday's Independent on how this affair exposes Barclay's (and Coutts) public image of being "gay-friendly" as insincere and cynical PR. 

Barclays Ad: Because Banks Are Wonderful!

Sorry, bit slow on the uptake with this one, 'cause I don't own a tellybox or go the cinema.
But Barclay's have a new ad that amongst other people features a gay couple.
Or rather a gay-not-gay-couple - they could be brothers or mates.
It's hard to be sure.
But I guess that's what the makers intended.
Still anyway, hurrah for banks - they really care.

Stonewall: Investing In Death

Stonewall have just launched their new subsite - Proud Employers.
"Jobs with LGB friendly employers".
No T for trans - natch.
Proud Employers main "Founding Partner" is Barclays.
Barclays are the biggest UK investor in the arms trade - worth £7.3 billion (War On Want).
Which would buy you a hell of a lot of cluster bombs.
The second founding partner is Credit Suisse - the tax-dodger's friend.
Third are the Earth-destroying crooks at BP.
So fucking proud!