by South Florida Gay News

After a highly successful event in 2009, the City of Miami Beach is gearing up for another historic Gay Pride Parade Festival and Expo set for Saturday, April 17 on Ocean Drive.

With award-winning actress Sharon Gless and army activist/Iraq veteran Lt. Dan Choi serving as Grand Marshals, crowds are expected to exceed 25,000; an amazing accomplishment according to Pride organizers for an event in its second year. View a Schedule of Events.

Pride Parade Highlights

The Pride Parade begins at noon at 5th Street on Ocean Drive, with a diverse range of festive floats and more than 1,000 people participating in the parade.  One of the most popular highlights of the parade is the Legacy Couples – 28 LGBT couples who have been in committed relationships for 20 years or more; George Volpe and Peter Santangelo have been together the longest, for 66 years.

Another highlight of the Parade is the Key West Rainbow Flag, a 100-foot piece of the flag created by the Key West GLBT Community Center.  Originally 8,000 feet long (1.25 miles), the flag contained 25 miles of seams before being broken up and donated to several LGBT organizations across the nation.  It was created at the request the late Harvey Milk and was designed by Gilbert Baker, designer of Milk’s eight-color flag 32 years ago. The Key West flag includes more than 18,000 yards of nylon fabric, 25 miles of seams and weighs more than three tons.

Many of the parade entrants will ride in classic cars, with Sharon Gless and Dan Choi leading in a vintage Rolls Royce.  South Beach performer Elaine Lancaster will ride in a classic Lindberg as part of the “Miami Beach 25/7” contingent, the same car that Madonna drove in the film Dick Tracy.

Pride Festival and Expo – Lummus Park, between 10th and 14th Streets

Immediately following the parade, the Expo will feature 150 booths, food kiosks, exhibits and a family-friendly play zone, creating a massive Gay Pride exhibition area for businesses, community organizations and entertainers to showcase their pride and support of LGBT equality.

Two entertainment stages will showcase local, national and international recording artists and music sets by international DJs (see schedule for details).

Pride Cruise

From Ocean Drive to the ocean, Miami Beach Gay Pride continues with the first-ever “Pride Celebration at Sea,” Monday, April 19 through Friday, April 23, a four-night/five-day voyage aboard the Norwegian Sky with stops in Grand Bahama, Nassau and Great Stirrup Cay.  The cruise is produced by Source Events, with a portion of tickets sold to be donated to Miami Beach Gay Pride.

An Eco-Friendly Pride Event, featuring The Green Team

ECOMB, the Environmental Coalition of Miami & the Beaches, in partnership with several local businesses, has developed a series of strategies to “Green” Miami Beach Gay Pride, including:

• A comprehensive Recycling program along Ocean Drive and Expo Area. Recycling bins courtesy by Waste Management
• Energy needs to be produced by Biodiesel Generators, provided by Sidram Power
• Transportation and recycling support by EZGO Street Legal Electric LSV Cars, courtesy of Advantage Golf Cars
• Green Team volunteers will ensure that the site remains clean and free of debris and/or recyclables. T-shirts made of organic cotton provided by Boucher Brothers Management.
• Organic food and smoothies to be provided by Pasha
• Serving utensils, napkins and drink cups made of recycled and recyclable plastic

Our Mission
Miami Beach Gay Pride brings together members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community, their friends, allies, and supporters in celebration of the unique spirit and culture of the LGBT community by producing free, safe, quality mass-appeal events that are open to all, such as the Parade, Festival and adjunct Miami Beach Pride sanctioned events.

Sponsors
Bar 721, Belvedere Vodka, BioScrip, City of Miami Beach, ECOMB, Felix Becerra, GLBT Community Projects Fund, HotFlyers, Icandee Events, Kersten Communications, Max Losk, Miami Beach Visitor and Convention Authority, Miami-Dade County, Mova, National Gay & Lesbian Task Force, Palace, TD Bank, Dade Community Foundation, Source Events, The Treister Murry Agency, Twist, Unity Coalition, Wachovia and Wolfe

Media Sponsors
Ambiente, Atlantic Broadband, Edge, Florida Agenda, HotSpots, Latino Boys Magazine, Mark’s List, Natural Awakenings, Passport Magazine, Plum TV, South Florida Gay News, Wire,  93.9 and Y-100.

For further information, please go to www.MiamiBeachGayPride.com.

As Vancouver continues to be lambasted by foreign press that have dubbed these Olympics the “Calamity Games,” Australia has failed to field enough volunteers to properly organize their annual naked version. Basically, they lacked the proper support.

“The…Nude Olympics won’t be happening in 2010, basically due to a manpower problem,” organizer Stephen P — who didn’t want his full name used — told QMI Agency.

The Southern United Naturists have run their bare-bottom Olympiad since the club was founded in the South Australia coastal suburb of Maslin Beach, more than 20 years ago.

The event gained worldwide attention.

Instead of toned athletes speeding down an icy bobsled run, the Nude Olympics featured often middle-aged beach goers taking part in egg and spoon races on hot sand. You wouldn’t find ice hockey, but there was a three-legged race in the 40C heat. And let’s not forget the full-on glory that came with winning the best bum competition.

However, like the original competitions in Greece — where male athletes would often compete without clothes — the Nude Olympics have also hit a snag in old traditions.

“In (the club’s) peak we would have had at least a couple of hundred active members…however times have changed,” said Stephen, a 47-year-old defence satellite communications expert.

They now have only twenty financial members.

He lamented a changing world, where people expect others to do all the work of organizing a massive event like the Olympics, as well as the social taboos that see naturists deal with society’s unease over being naked around children.

A church leader and French horn musician, Stephen does have faith though, that the Olympic spirit will one day rise again over his local beach.

He vowed: “We are confident that the Maslin Nude Olympics will be resurrected one day.”

Until then, he can at least watch the Vancouver Games in the buff.

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World Pride 2014 to be hosted in Toronto, Canada

Toronto will host an international celebration of gay rights after winning the support of delegates at the Inter-Pride Conference in Florida yesterday morning.

Beating out Stockolm in the competition to host the 2014 event, Pride Toronto organizers hope hosting the World Pride bash will bring a cash boost to the city. “A festival of this nature will bring Pride contingents from the world over,” said Pride Toronto spokeswoman Crystal Moore. “There’s no telling just how many will flock to the city for World Pride in 2014.”

World Pride — which includes a parade, an opening ceremony, festivals and cultural events — promotes gay, lesbian, bisexual and trans-gender issues internationally. Toronto’s World Pride event will include a human-rights conference and an AIDS candlelight vigil, among other activities.

Organizers from Pride Toronto said last year’s Pride Week, which hosted more than one million people, contributed $136-million to the city’s economy and drew nearly 750,000 tourists to the city. The 10-day-long celebration in June cost about $4-million.

They anticipate even more attendees for World Pride, noting London expects double their attendance rates in 2012.

“World Pride 2014 will transform our local pride and community spirit, while generating a positive impact on our economy, our tourism and commercial industry, and our physical and social community,” Ms. Moore said.

“In over 29 years of Pride Week celebrations, the world has taken notice of Toronto as a city that celebrates diversity,” said George Smitherman, Ontario’s Deputy Premier and the first openly gay Cabinet minister.

Toronto triumphed over Stockholm with 78% of the ballots in the second round of voting yesterday at the conference in St. Petersburg. Stockholm also lost a bid to host the event in 2012.

The Toronto bid was presented on Saturday by a contingent including police officers and David Whitaker, the president of Tourism Toronto.

The World Pride celebration was first held in Rome in 2000. The second was set to take place in Jerusalem in 2006 but was cancelled due to regional conflict. The next one is scheduled in 2012 in London, just before the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

World Pride will happen simultaneously with Toronto’s Pride Week in 2014. Next year’s Pride Week is the event’s 30th anniversary and will be held from June 25 to July 4.

Read more: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=2118654#ixzz0UUB82cXa
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Several years ago, she was honoured by the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation for increasing “visibility and understanding” of homosexuality.

This is how it went recently for Caroline Leto and Venera Magazzu as they sipped lemonade on their couch in Dania Beach: “We’re not going to have a party,” said Magazzu, 97, insisting they are too old for such things.

“Oh, yes we are,” responded Leto, 96, who noted the two can still polka. “This is a big one.”

Indeed. A party celebrating 70 years together is a big deal for any pair. But a celebration of this couple’s love takes on special meaning, considering they had to keep silent about it for decades.

“You just couldn’t tell everyone we were lovers,” said Leto. “You tell people we’re friends, and some thought we were sisters.”

Leto and Magazzu downplay their pioneering role in the gay and community. But many of their friends and relatives talk it up anyway, marveling at how their love was able to transcend a lifetime’s worth of obstacles.

To mark their Aug. 17 milestone, members of Etz Chaim, a gay and congregation in Wilton Manors, are planning a party. They hope Leto and Magazzu will attend and show everyone how to do the polka.

“Honestly, I think they are more in love with each other than they were back then,” said longtime close friend and congregation member Gayle Scott. “Look at straight couples. You are lucky if you are married after seven years. … That is an amazing love story.”

In 1939 Leto and Magazzu met at a party in New York. Leto thought Magazzu was stylish. Magazzu thought Leto was funny.

After a courtship of about a year, Magazzu, a teacher, and Leto, a telegraph operator, moved into a tiny house in New York. They spent most of their lives there, with only close family members and closer friends knowing about their relationship.

Magazzu, a former Army medic, said she often fought the urge to tell others, and feared what “outsiders” would think. She believes society back then was more receptive to two women living together than two men — or at least less inquisitive.

“I think most people had their suions, but they didn’t really make a big deal about it because it was just two women,” she said. “They didn’t ask, and we just didn’t talk about it.”

Leto’s niece, Patricia Dillion, said she grew up believing the two were sisters and referred to them as aunts. One day, at a family party, an apparently tipsy Leto let Dillion in on a secret.

“She mentioned they got married,” said Dillion. “I was so happy, but then I got sad thinking that all that time they really couldn’t be upfront about it.”

In 1996, the couple registered as domestic partners in New York City. They said they did it because they felt the need to tell everyone about their life together.

Years later they moved to Florida, where they got more active in the gay and community, attending rallies and galas and recounting their story. They led the life of any Florida retiree couple, going on cruises, playing poker on Tuesday nights with friends. At one point, they adopted a pet monkey named Chi-Chi.

In 2006, as age slowed them down a bit, Magazzu put their story in a self-published book called “An Unadulterated Story: Young and Gay at 90.”

During a reporter’s recent visit, the two quibbled over where they had last seen a copy. Magazzu insisted it was in a bedroom. Leto said she saw it in the trunk of their car.

“OK, so if you know where everything is, then you look for it,” Magazzu huffed as she turned her head toward the kitchen.

Leto smiled. “Cute, isn’t she?”

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Gay community or LGBT community defines the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender subculture and the additional identifiable “sub-communities”, such as the leather community, the Bear community, the chubby community, the lesbian community, the bisexual community, the transgender community, the drag community, the rave community, and many others. The sexual minority cultures represent a sub-demographic of the “gay community” at large, as the concept includes several conceptual and empirical problems, such as heterosexism, homophobia, sex-negativity, and conformist pressures. Most of the members are organized in gay villages, known and sometimes referred to as “gay communities”, whose goal is to promote pride, diversity, individuality, and sexuality.

The Gay and Lesbian Community Center of South Florida recently decided to make a new movement, at 2040 North Dixie Hwy, to a multimillion-dollar, six-acre campus with a waterfront view and Wilton Manors address, in order to provide the proper neccessities and rights of an increasingly assertive and growing gay community.It has been purchased on June 27 for $4.75 million, without including the future demands of a vibrant community center.

”Sexual orientation and gender identity are relevant issues for every human on this planet,” said Paul Hyman, executive director of the GLCC. “We want this new campus to be a resource of not only the [gay] community, but an environment of safety and fairness for all people.”

The’campus’ of the gay community will include several activities and services, such as a cybercafe, HIV counseling center, methamphetamine treatment center, theater and conference center and a catering kitchen conceived to have the capacity of serving up to 200 people. In addition, there will be a real organization of memorial services and weddings, along the Middle River riverfront, a church – Church of the Holy SpiritSong.All the religious groups will be accepted, without making any difference between them.

”In addition to social needs and healthcare needs, we want to address spirituality,” Hyman said.

”This is a blessing,” declared the church’s Rev. Leslie Tipton.

It will take up to 9 months for the members of the community to develop the features and renovations that are neccessary, considering a 35,000 square feet of office spaces, and population: there are at least 51,000 same-sex households in the state and third of them are in South Florida.The GLCC has grown fastr than it was expected, expanding far beyond its first home in the early 1990’s – a Victoria Park home’s garage.

‘It’s hard to figure out if people are just here for five years to `rest and recharge’ before moving to Chicago or New York,’said Michael Emanuel Rajner, a gay activist.

The gay community has a budget of $900,000, that is expected to grow, reaching $1 million in 2009.

”We need this new center to respond more effectively to the need and to provide our groups more space that’s needed,” Rajner said.

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Less than two weeks after submitting a letter of intent to bid on selection as host city for Gay Games IX, Miami Beach, Fla. reversed a city law banning the flying of the rainbow flag–and raised a multicolored banner high over City Hall.

The flag raising drew reportage from local CBS affiliate Channel 4, which posted a story online Nov. 11.

The so-called gay pride flag was created by Gilbert Baker, a San Francisco artist, whose early version of the flag included two additional stripes, in comparison to the most common such flag of today.

Baker’s flag included the six stripes seen on most contemporary flags, along with a hot pink stripe and an indigo stripe, according to a Wikipedia article.

Baker’s flag was hoisted in the June 25, 1978 Gay Freedom Day Parade in San Francisco, the Wikipedia article said, going on to note that demand for the flag skyrocketed in the aftermath of the murder of openly gay San Francisco City Supervisor Harvey Milk, whose career–and whose struggle against a Proposition 8-like anti-gay ballot initiative–is the focus of a new biopic starring Sean Penn.

The CBS-4 story quoted Miami Beach mayor Matti Herrera Bower, who said of the newly-hoisted pride flag, “I think that this is just another step to making a whole city, a city that really welcomes gays and lesbians.”

The city commission struck down a long-standing ordinance forbidding the flying of the rainbow flag in Miami Beach–a curious anachronism for a city known as a favorite gay tourism spot.

The CBS-4 story quoted Miami Beach resident Luis Randazzo, who said, “It’s a historic day for us.

“The gay flag is a representation of diversity,” continued Randazzo. “It represents equality. It represents the cultural identity of the community.”

As another resident put it: “Miami Beach has a little bit of everything.

“I think that’s what makes Miami Beach what it is–so I’m okay with it.”

The presence of the flag might also help make Miami Beach the next host city for the Gay Games. Miami was one of four American cities to submit letters to the Federation of Gay Games expressing the intention of bidding to become the site for the next Gay Games in 2014.

Boston, Cleveland, and Washington, D.C. also submitted letters notifying the FGG that those cities, too, intend to throw their hats into the ring for the honor–and the profit–of hosting the games, according to a release from the FGG.

Site inspectors from the FGG will travel to each of the four cities next summer to determine which one will be chosen to host the 2014 Games.

Every four years, more than eleven thousand athletes and other participants join together for the world’s largest GLBT sporting and cultural event, according to the FGG news release.

The 2010 Games are already scheduled to take place in Cologne, Germany.

Past host cities have included San Francisco (twice: 1982 and again in 1986), Vancouver (1990), New York (1994), Amsterdam (1998), Sydney (2002), and Chicago (2006).

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