Columbus Pride 2009: Freedom

Columbus Pride had a theme this year of "FREEDOM." The official Pride website states:

Freedom is living without fear of discrimination. Watch for some interesting facts about living and being GLBT in central Ohio and decide for yourself, “Have we achieved Freedom?”

Listening to the pre-march rally we heard speakers call out, "repeal don't ask, don't tell" and "vote for me for office, 'cause I'm all about GLBT equality" and "Shop at our store, we give our queer workers the same rights as straight people!"

THAT'S NOT FREEDOM! THAT'S ASSIMILATION!!

We want to be free from these oppressive institutions: free from Capitalism, Imperialism, and all forms of State power. So Bash Back! Columbus joined in the pride march clad in our fines pink and black with a message of our own... FREE YOURSELF FROM QUEER CONSUMERISM:



and handed out barf bags encouraging people to Barf up their Corporate Pride and attached "Pink Dollars" with a message on the back calling queers to question the gay-main-stream.

CALLING ALL RADICAL QUEERS!

So this Saturday at 1pm is Columbus' annual corporate sponsored Pride Fest, whose sponsors include: Bud Light, the Hampton Inn, American Family Insurance, Target, Time Warner Cable, State Farm Insurance, Macy's, Fifth Third Bank, and drumroll please... Starbucks coffee. You know, just to name a few.
Bash Back says Fuck corporate pride! End gay assimilation! Us queers won't be relegated into some pro-capitalist 'free' market bullshit.

Being queer is about a lot more than shacking up with a same sex partner and begging the state for approval, and it certainly has nothing to do with assimilating ourselves into a system of 'free' markets that keeps queers, people of color, womyn and the working class under the thumb of bosses and corporations. Being queer is about re-defining and creating new spaces free from ALL OPPRESSION.

So with that in mind, we invite other radical queers to queer up the pride march with us!
Bash Back! will be at Pride Fest to pass out our 'Barf out your Corporate Pride Bags' Please feel free to reprint and distribute our little leaflet as you please as well, which is posted below. And show up in your finest pink and black!

"Hey Gurl,

Listen honey, i just want to know when the hell did the “gay agenda” get
so tragically boring? i don’t know about you, but my queer wet dreams
didn’t involve going off to war and then settling in the suburbs…has our
liberation movement really come down to this? Really? Also, don’t you
get just even a weensey bit tired of all the hetero muzak blasting in
the supposed “gay” clubs? i’m queer for a reason – i get enough of the
straights at work. Is it asking too much for “our community” to support
queer artists? Tired of whoring yourself out on craigslist cuz you can’t
afford to go to the bath houses/sex clubs.. oh wait.. there’s only one
left… shit… what ever happened to sex in public anyway? And don’t even
get me started on HRC! Those bitches are just Hindering Real Change -
you can’t dump the “T” in LGBT and say you’re MY advocate!!! If you find
the gay-main-stream / Short North as tired as Laura Bush’s ensembles –
then i say BASH BACK sugar! http://bashbacknews.wordpress.com/"