What's the meaning of Mardi Gras?

[xalciene]

The annual Sydney Mardi Gras festival has just kicked off, and the next month will be filled with a wide variety of musical, dramatic and social events. On 3 March it will all come to a head with the world-famous parade, now in its 29th year.

Mardi Gras is an entertaining spectacle for a lot of Sydneysiders - both gay and straight - and gives Sydney

Comments

[slothyblondie]

I found this to be quite an interesting read.

...smart ass!

[xalciene]

haha :P get back to work tess!

(actually, a shorter version of it is appearing in tomorrow's Crikey email)

[kewpid]

In terms of equality there is still a great deal of discrimination against same-sex couples in terms of tax, super, welfare, wills, healthcare, family law, and other boring but important things, so 'almost a reality' is a bit optimistic. But anyway, that's not the focus of your article.

[minivarnz]

As above.....they beat me to it.

Also not the focus of your article either but something I want to point out, is AIDS. The number of HIV infections has risen at a worryingly sharp rate over the past four years, and many blame this on complacency i.e. "AIDS is over" or "AIDS was an eighties thing"...

Perhaps Mardi Gras would be the perfect vehicle for reviving the AIDS awareness that was so prevalent in the eighties and nineties. If it's still okay to actually confront issues anymore.

[xalciene]

Yes, and a good point -- the recent trends do look quite worrying; certainly a case of moral hazard. But then, if the message was in MG, would the right people be listening? Or would they be 'preaching to the converted' or the safe-sex weary?

[xalciene]

yes -- very good point. I guess I should have made it more explicit I'm talking about relative acceptance/progress rather than absolutes. And it's true, gay couples do experience a lot more legal discrimination than other couples.