Tom Ford, best known as a leading fashion designer famed for his luxury clothing ranges, accessories, fragrance and cosmetics, has managed to score a Bafta for his very first feature film. Well, sort of, the Bafta actually went to Colin Firth for his performance as, George,  a gay professor in Ford's directorial debut, A Single Man.

Accepting the award this week, Firth said he had worked with many directors and Ford was "up there with the best of them". High praise from an actor's actor. Firth was also named best actor for the role at the venice Film Festival.

The film also stars multi-dimensional Julianne Moore, who previously turned in a magnificent performance as a 1950s housewife with a closeted gay husband (Dennis Quaid) in Todd Haynes visual feast, Far From Heaven. In A Single Man Moore plays the best friend of an academic struggling to find meaning in his life following the death of his male partner.

Newsweek's David Ansen said in his review of the film: A Single Man addresses mighty big questions—love, death and the difficulty and necessity of living in the Now." While some American conservatives dismissed A Single Man as "gay marriage propaganda", the film is actually based on a book by Christopher Isherwood, published in the early 1960s, demonstrating just how long the struggle for relationship recognition has been going on.

Join GAYinWA and Pride WA this Thursday evening at Cinema Paradiso for the premiere of this milestone movie. The screening will take place at Cinema Paradiso, 164 James Street Northbridge, at 6.30pm, Thursday 25th February.  Tickets can be purchased on the door from GAYinWA and Pride for $15.50 (general admission) and $11 (students and concession card holders). Check out the trailer below.

RTRFM hosted Patti Chong and John Hyde for a studio debate this morning, previewing Sunday's Summertime Debate at Luxe, and we have the MP3 for you to download now.

It looks like it is going to be a nice, warm sunny day, so what better way to end the weekend than by enjoying a delicious woodfired pizza, washed down with a couple of beautifully made cocktails, while watching a star-studded lineup debate one of our community's most contentious issues?

There are still tickets available to this boutique event and you can secure your presale tickets from Travel Forever, Barrack Street for $20.  If you can't get into town, you can also phone 0428 425 023 with your credit card until midday Sunday and we will set aside tickets for you to collect at the door.  Tickets will be $30 on the door.

Your money will be going to good causes. Funds raised will go towards the staging of this year's GlamFest Gay & Lesbian Film Festival and the Pride Committee will be there raising funds with a raffle.

Download the MP3 here.

Eddy McGuire's locker room banter with Mick Molloy on last night's Winter Olympics, in which the pair derided openly gay figure skater Johnny Weir, sparked a furore today, with many branding the comments as homophobic and others citing them as another example of why Eddie should not be hosting the Nine Network's games coverage.

Dealing with the latter first, anybody who has followed Eddie's career since his national debut as host of the Footy Show in the early 1990s knows that the bloke people call Eddie Everywhere is also Eddie Doesn't Quite Get There.  His footy commentary was never as good as Bruce McAvaney's, his brief stint as Chief Executive Officer at Nine saw the station's ratings tumble and his ten-year Presidency of the Collingwood Football Club has still to yield a premiership.  He was always going to disappoint as games compere because, despite his big smile and booming voice, he is pretty boring.  His success at the Footy Show was predicated completely on the smutty (yet sometimes enjoyable) humour of Sam Newman and, tellingly, the Footy Show hasn't skipped a beat since McGuire's departure.  Perhaps, recognising the secret of his success, McGuire sought to employ the same Footy Show formula in his games coverage.  Or, perhaps, classless attempts at humour follow him in the same way that poorly behaved team-mates have an uncanny way of following Chris Judd (there, I've said it).

It is also possible that McGuire has sought to re-create the formula Roy (Slaven) and HG (Nelson) successfully employed in the nightly wrapup at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, The Dream.  If that's the case, I can't fault him for trying - for me, Roy and HG were the highlight of the Sydney Olympics, narowly edging out the Cathy Freeman gold medal, the irritated face of John Howard as Sir William Dean fluffed the opening and Kylie and her giant thong.  Seriosuly, though, Roy and HG were funny, taking the mickey out of anything and everything and, I am sure, they made the odd gay gag.  The difference is, they knew how to do it without anybody taking offence from it.

You will have noticed that I have largely spared Mick Molloy in my rant.  This is because Molloy, who I have always thought a rather funny bugger, is just trying to turn a buck and was probably under direction.  Eddie is already a millionaire and you would expect his performance to match his paypacket.

As to whether their comments were homophobic or not, I have mixed feelings.  On the one hand, they were clumsy and foolish and had the potential to leave young gay guys in their audience, who, quite possibly, were enjoying the figure skating, feeling a little less good about themselves.  On the other hand, I wouldn't like to think that we gay men, as a cohort, lacked the ability to laugh at ourselves.

Whether the comments were homophobic or not, the truth is they were a sign of a compere struggling for content and returning to what he knows best.  Somebody should throw him a lifeline.

Join GAYinWA Events and Pride WA for a joint fundraiser, as we screen the WA premiere of 'A Single Man'.  The movie stars Colin Firth in his highly acclaimed role as a college professor grappling with the death of his male partner of 16 years in a car crash.  The screening will take place at Cinema Paradiso, 164 James Street Northbridge, at 6.30pm, Thursday 25th February.  Tickets can be purchased on the door from GAYinWA and Pride for $15.50 (general admission) and $11 (students and concession card holders).  Read more about 'A Single Man' at Empire Online.  Check out the trailer below.

Break out the chocolates and rose bouquets – Valentines Day is upon us.  Whether you’re planning a romantic dinner, movie-night or just staying in, it’s hard to ignore the flurry of hearts, flowers and appalling poetry coming our way through magazines, billboards and TV.  It’s unfortunately one of those holidays that the media jumps on eagerly – bombarding us with endless images of happy, plastic perfect couples celebrating Valentines Day. Sadly, in mainstream media that means almost entirely heterosexual couples. Not for the first time, GLBTI people get left by the wayside and forgotten amid the flurry of rose petals and heart-shaped candies.

But it doesn’t necessarily have to be so.

It’s Valentines Day for same-sex and gender diverse couples as well, and we have as much right to publicly celebrate our loving relationships as anyone else.

2010 has been declared as the National Year of Action for Equal Marriage. Throughout the year, community groups and activists will be organising events to put pressure on the Federal and State Governments to remove the 2004 ban on same-sex marriage, and to invite the public to make a stand for equality.

This Valentines Day, Community organisers Families for Freedom will be hosting a special Action for Marriage Equality – beginning with a rally and march through the Perth CBD and ending with a community festival featuring local musicians, stand-up comedians as well as a couple of drag-artists. Everyone is welcome to attend, and encouraged to wear red, white and pink to show support for all loving relationships.

Join us at Noon on Sunday February 14th in Stirling Gardens, St. Georges Terrace for a Valentines Day that everyone can enjoy.

For more info, check out our official website, track us down on Facebook or email us on This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or you can check out our new YouTube Video below.

Whatever you do – Don’t be invisible on Valentines Day!

With only two weeks until A Summertime Debate debuts outdoors at Luxe Bar, things are getting serious, with celebrity lawyer Patti Chong joining the fray.  A Summertime Debate will help raise funds for Pride WA & the GlamFest Gay & Lesbian Film Festival and will see Patti join Maylands MLA Lisa Baker, former Democrats Senator Brian Greig and Gay & Lesbian Equality Chair Rod Swift to argue against the assertion that, "we don't want marriage anyway."

Fighting in favour of the debate proposition (against marriage) will be Perth MLA John Hyde, Greens MLC Giz Watson, former Pride patron Aram Hosie and former GLCS Chair Mark Woodman.

The debate will be chaired (refereed) by former Pride Co-President and newly elected Bassendean Mayor John Gangell.

Tunes will be provided, both before and after the bout, by local dj legend, Dirty Den, and freshly made woodfired pizzas and beautifully made cocktails (and other icy cold beverages) will be available ringside throughout.

The debate will be staged outdoors in Luxe's beautiful bamBOO garden space, making it a truly new and unique event on our community's calendar.  Tickets are limited, so get yours now from Travel Forever, Barrack Street or by phoning 0428 425 023 with your credit card.  Tickets are $20 presale and $30 on the door.

Something annoyed me Thursday morning. Anyone who knows me would not think this an uncommon occurrence, but this made me angry.  I was listening to Nova937’s Nathan & Nat with Shaun McManus as they were discussing the over-dramatisation of the third season of my favourite reality show So You Think You Can Dance Australia.

I wasn’t getting defensive – in fact, I’m inclined to agree with their point of view. I’ve cried three times this week and I haven’t even broken a nail.

But before throwing it over to the listeners to hear what they thought, Shaun McManus said he had banned it from being watched in his house, calling it the “gayest show” on TV. NOTE: I could be paraphrasing – I tried to make a note of the exact words but was stuck on the freeway manipulating a merge with a typical Chinese driver and a sudden swerve made me drop my iPhone.



As if picking on SYTYCD isn’t sacrilegious enough – the show IS the homosexual experience on TV. Dancing has never been the cool thing to do; the cool group hang out on the school oval, not in front of a wall of mirrors wearing a unitard and knee-highs. As gay people we all know what it’s like to feel that what we do isn’t cool, and how emotional an experience it can be to rise above that.

So in that respect, SYTYCD is a pretty gay show, but I’m sure that analogy was not what Shaun McManus had in mind Thursday morning.

Most people wouldn’t see Mr McManus’s comment as a big deal. The phrase “that’s so gay” has made it into the Australian vernacular. It’s been bandied around in our schools for years, and now it’s making its way into our workplaces and our radios! But any readers who balked at me using the intentionally racist phrase “typical Chinese driver” will hopefully understand that the term “that’s so gay” vilifies homosexuals in the same way that phrase vilifies the Chinese.

It is about time we realise that a statement like “that’s so gay” vilifies same-sex oriented people throughout the country. Every time a young boy or girl who is questioning their sexuality hears such statements, it takes them further away from accepting themselves. We’ve all been there!

As Australians, we don’t accept racial vilification, so why is it OK for us to degrade homosexuality with this flippant insult? I am not accusing Shaun McManus or Nova937 of vilification. When I complained to Nova937’s Managing Director Gary Roberts, he raised a valid point that Shaun’s comment was not in the same league as John Laws’ comments in 2004, which were found to vilify homosexuals by the NSW Administrative Decisions Tribunal. I am sure McManus did not intend to vilify anyone, least of all his colleague Nathan Morris. But, as with sexual harassment, intent is irrelevant. The point is that someone was offended by his comment, and I am sure I am not the only one.

After complaining to Gary Roberts and not being satisfied that I was being heard, I went into attack mode. I created the slogan THAT’S SO GAY? NO WAY! and was emailing a friend to create a logo when I discovered that the proposed domain name for my anarchic website was already taken. www.thatssogay.com.au is a website and foundation created by Daniel Witthaus. Daniel tours Australian schools, holding seminars and workshops and selling his book, Beyond ‘That’s So Gay’: Challenging Homophobia in Secondary Schools. I was excited and empowered to find that I’m not alone in being fed up with the overuse of this offensive term.

But while I think it is important to discuss this phenomenon in our schools, I also think it’s about time we discussed it in the workplace and the adult sphere. Just like the terms “gook”,” nigger”, “boong” and “wog” I hope that one day the term “that’s so gay” is one that we mutter under our breaths in fear that we’ll be heard by a society that (at least on paper) rejects such vilification, rather than being thrown around on Perth radio by former footballers who should know better.

For those playing at home, In August 2007 Laws was again embroiled in controversy after suggesting on-air that "Chinese drivers are probably the worst drivers on the face of the earth." I hope my intentional irony was more accessible than Laws’s claims that he is not racist.

Next week’s open community forum (7pm, Monday 8th February) at Loton Park Tennis Club is set to feature one of the most important discussions our community has had in years.  While many will see the discussion as being about what events they want Pride to stage, the reality is that, unless we properly define Pride’s role and then work together to support it and complement it, then we may not have much of a community at all in a couple of years time.

Eight years on from gay & lesbian law reform, our community is struggling for both definition and direction.  Ten years ago, we had a broad range of community groups, with clearly defined roles and plenty of passionate volunteers to do the work.  Our venues were pumping, as they provided a safe haven in a sometimes threatening world and were still the first choice for gay and lesbian people looking to pick up or to meet that special someone.  Our gay and lesbian media, with rights still to fight for and injustices aplenty to report on, tackled issues head on and were not afraid of ruffling feathers, if they thought it was in our best interests.  These days, with many people struggling to remember the time before law reform, most of our community groups struggle for committee members and our venues are increasingly “mixed”, as gay and lesbian folk socialise more and more at straight venues and use the internet to satisfy their more personal needs.

Put simply, our community is much changed and tenuous and it has been for a while.  Two years ago, Pride was struggling for survival.  Last year, it was Loton Park.  This year, it is Pride again.  It is no individual’s fault and it will require all of us to find a solution.

My view is that Pride’s major events are what has held our sense of community together in the years since law reform.  The Parade and Fairday provide our community with opportunities to come together and interact with both each other and individual members of our community.  Without events of these types, those networks would break down.  Events like Fairday and the Parade also provide gay and lesbian publications with content, advertising revenue and key distribution points.  They draw huge crowds into Northbridge that feed into the biggest nights of the year for venues like The Court and Connections.  Events like Fairday and the Parade provide our community with things to look forward to, get excited about and focus our energies on.  Essentially, they are a core part of our culture, without which, many other aspects of our culture could disintegrate and fall down.

There are a number of views about what form the Parade and Fairday should take in the future and you can read some of them in our discussion paper.  However, given the importance of these major events to everything else we identify as “community” in Perth, it is vital that we do everything that we can to ensure they are retained, even if they are modified to suit the times.

The State Government and the City of Perth provide a total of $65,000 to stage Fairday and the Parade and, all other things being managed well, this funding should underwrite the viable staging of both events.  Historically speaking, in the years that Pride has made a profit, Pride has focused on these core events.  In the years that Pride has made a loss, Pride has risked and invariably lost these funds by staging new events or engaging in new expenditure not related to staging its core events.  Committees, including this year’s committee and committees I served on, have always done this with the best of intentions, but we always seem to end up back at the same point every few years, discussing another Pride loss, wondering if Fairday and the Parade will be staged again and wondering how we are going to fix things.  The situation is never helped by the fact that Pride rarely has a committee that is much more than half full, making it difficult to manage the major events, let alone the new ventures that new committees embark on from year to year.

After a great year in 2008, in which the community showed strong support for festival events, attendances at Fairday, the Pride Party and the Pride Film Festival all fell in 2009.  While there are differences of opinion as to whether Parade spectator numbers were up or down, the only available indicator (door sales at the party) suggests a drop in numbers.  As a result of these outcomes losses by new events like the Pride Ball and new enterprises like merchandise, pre-audit figures provided by Pride indicate a loss of about $35,000.  This represents a financial turnaround of more than $70,000 on the previous year.  On top of this, measures that the 2008 committee put in place to improve the financial performance of Fairday and the Pride Party appear to not have worked in 2009, with the deterioration in the financial performance of Fairday accounting for much of Pride’s loss and, if the rumours are true, Connections Nightclub thinking twice about staging the Pride Party again.  After making a huge contribution to Pride's financial turnaround in 2008, last year's party is reported to have struggled financially.

Two years ago, Pride was broke and was saved by current Co-President Charles Denham’s generous loan of $35,000.  This is the only reason Pride survived then and those funds remain the only reason Pride is solvent now.  We had a near-death experience two years ago and, while Pride is still afloat, we must take action after this second major warning that the current model isn’t working.

Unfortunately, much of the debate in recent weeks has focused on whether events staged by organisations other than Pride are the cause of Pride’s problems.  With the level of activity within the community having shrunk so much in the post law reform era, I refuse to believe that the answer is to shrink it even further by discouraging people other than Pride from staging events.  Asking a half-dozen volunteer committee members to shoulder the responsibility for staging all of our community’s events isn’t fair.  It also isn’t fair on the broader population, who deserve to enjoy a diverse range of activities throughout the year.  Putting events like Fairday and the Parade at risk by asking Pride to risk its government funding, not to mention the fees paid by its members, in staging new unfunded events isn’t fair on our community either.  There has to be another solution.

While Pride struggles to break even from year to year, there are businesses that make tens of thousands, and, some, hundreds of thousands, of dollars on the back of Pride events.  In my view, the answers to Pride’s financial problems lie in ensuring Pride gets it fair share of the revenues it generates, and the best bang for every dollar it spends.  If this approach is taken, and if we clearly define Pride’s role, we could move past this ongoing problem of having to “save Pride” and into a new era of collaboration and growth in our community.

In my view, there are five simple steps we could take that would improve Pride’s financial future, reduce the workload on committee members, improve attendances at Pride’s major events and encourage the development of a diverse range of events throughout the year.

DEFINE PRIDE'S ROLE

(1) We need to identify a model for staging Fairday and the Parade that reflects community wants and needs and make these events the primary focus of Pride’s energies.  Depending on committee resources, Pride could stage no-risk events throughout the year, such as sundowners and quiz nights, to raise funds to stage these events.  However, Pride should not risk the $65,000 in State and local government funding received to stage events like Fairday and the Parade by staging new unfunded events or engaging in new expenditure not related to these core events.

(2) Pride should truly step into the role of the umbrella (peak) organisation that our community has always lacked.  While it focuses its energies on staging Fairday and the Parade, Pride should assist other community groups and businesses who stage events consistent with Pride’s mission and objectives by promoting these events to Pride members through Pride’s web site, e-newsletter and, potentially, a physical newsletter.  In return, other community groups and businesses (like us) that stage events could stage some events as Pride fundraisers and offer Pride members discounts on admission to our events.  This could create, similar to Melbourne, a diverse range of sustainable organisations, united under Pride’s mission and objectives, running a diverse range of events that they are passionate about and have the skills, experience and networks to stage well.

PROMOTE PRIDE'S EVENTS BROADLY

(3) Pride should identify a public relations company willing to develop (and possibly implement) a public relations strategy on a pro-bono basis that identifies the best mix of advertising opportunities, publications, news angles and online and social media to reach a more geographically spread community, with many members who rely on online forums to get their news and information.  With attendances at all Pride events falling significantly in 2009, the current strategy needs a re-think.

ENSURE PRIDE GETS ITS FAIR SHARE

(4) Pride needs to bring the management of the bar at Fairday back in house.  In 2008, Pride introduced an entry fee to Fairday of $5 (members) and $10 (non-members), which significantly helped the event’s bottom line.  At the same time, Pride started paying an events management company a significant fee to manage the event, and this has clearly helped the event to run more efficiently.  However, in 2008 and 2009, the events management company also took a share of up to 65 per cent (2009) of the bar profits, representing tens of thousands of dollars of Fairday revenue.  During the 15 years preceding this, many of us put in countless hours behind the Fairday bar and I, for one, would be happy to get my Responsible Service of Alcohol Certificate over the Internet and volunteer again.  This single initiative would see a massive improvement in Pride’s bottom line.

(5) Pride and The Court need to repair their relationship so that The Court makes a financial contribution to Pride that reflects the huge windfall that Pride delivers the venue following Fairday and the Parade.  Long gone are the days that Pride could make money from staging its own dance parties in warehouses.  In this environment, Pride should not favour one venue over the other and should endorse both  The Court and Connections as hosting official Pride after-parties.  The Court and Connections should then donate a per-head amount to Pride that recognises the expenditure and effort that Pride puts in to bringing people into Northbridge.  If each venue donated just $5 per head to Pride under this model, this could equate to more than $20,000 of new income.  This would represent a tiny proportion of the night’s entry and bar receipts and would be a smart investment, when you consider both the importance of those nights and the importance of maintaining a cohesive gay and lesbian community to the financial performance of those venues.

In the four years that I was on the Pride Committee, I reckon I served with over 50 Pride committee members and I don’t think I have met one, then or since, who had not joined the organisation because they wanted to make Perth a better place to live for LGBT Western Australians.  That is what we are about at GAYinWA and I have no doubt that all the people that work at our venues, publications and other gay and lesbian businesses, as well as all of those who volunteer their time for our various community groups, have the same goal.

The ideas I have outlined above could improve Pride’s bottom line by more than $50,000 alone each year, would improve attendances at Pride’s major events and could foster a diverse range of events, staged by a diverse range of community groups and businesses, united under Pride’s mission and objectives.

Unity + Diversity = Pride