Most people neither know nor remember why the Gay Pride movement and Parades started.  It has been forty-eight years since the first Stonewall Riot ended and the first Gay Pride Parade followed a year later.   None the less, the use of force, brutality, inhuman treatment, intolerance, fascism, disgraceful policing actions, illegal arrests, unlawful imprisonment, racism, homophobia, illegal confinement, psychological and physical torture, discrimination, character assassination and sexual profiling by the police forces upon gay people around the globe will never be forgotten.    All those inequities ground to a halt on June 29th, 1969, at a bar in Greenwich Village in New York City.  That was the start of the Gay Liberation movement.  It’s why gay people and their supporters march, to celebrate their victory over oppression and tyranny by the police forces.  Pride is the celebration of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered, Transsexual, Queer community [ LGBTTQ ].  A Pride Parade is the Gay anniversary marker for Freedom, it is for the victors not the antagonists.

Seemingly, the Orange Order parades do not include Catholics.  The Days of Remembrance Holocaust parades never include Nazi supporters. Gays for Trump do not march in Charlotte’s Pride Parade.  And of course, the Ku Klux Klan only march in their own parades.  Toronto and Halifax exclude Police in Pride Parades.  Vancouver, BC., limits Police in the Parade to twenty only in uniform, others in T shirts and they will be with-out sirens, tasers, guns, floats and police cars.

I personally watched the events unfold in 1969 on Black and White TV when the gays gained liberation.  Subsequently the march for civil rights sky-rocketed and huge gains were made by Black people. The feminist movement also did not waste any time to seek equality with men.  The world finally started to change for marginalized and oppressed people and the Police choke hold on society was demolished.

I am not fooled for a nanosecond that the Police are still bullying their way back into the control of LGBTTQ and are marginalizing new members of our society.  Seeing a bunch of Calgary Cops marching in a platoon waving small gay flags totally sickens me and many, many others.  I reread the history of Calgary Bath house raids by self serving cops.  I remember how awfully disgusting a former Chief of Police ‘gated’ Everett Klippert [the Calgary Transit Driver] in to a lifetime of prison for alleged bogus crimes.  The Police in Calgary have always been the same.  They did not stop either of the Chinatown riots, in fact they looked the other way.  The CPS was always homogeneous while other forces in America and Canada integrated with the population.  The Calgary Police Service [CPS] never gets sensitivity training until the very last moments for anything.  The way that native and First Nations people were treated in Calgary is heart breaking.  The way that Asians were painted by the CPS as being members of gangs is sickening.  I believe that criminality and drug culture is colour blind, anything else is racism. I find it filthy and disgusting the way people of colour are carded and have their civil liberties stolen from them.  More disgusting is the way a female City of Calgary Counselor was forced to resign their position on the Calgary Police Commission board because they dared to make public that female officers were being bullied and intimidated by male officers.  Those are the facts.

No one should ever question a world-wide organization like Pride about their decision to thank the police for security during the parade, but allowing the Police to march in the parade is verboten. Pride and the Police are not partners and never will be.  After all the words are said and spelt, the Pride Committee makes the decisions. They have decided to keep the cops out.  I agree with the Pride council because they know their principals.  I agree with Pride because if I didn’t I’d be homophobic.  Gay people may forgive but they will never, never forget.

Rork Hilford

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Topic Calgary Police | Calgary Pride | VOICES |