Brighton Gay Men’s Chorus will be bringing their new show Back To The Bond Age to the Brighton Fringe Festival at the beginning of May.
Brighton Gay Men’s Chorus
BACK To The Bond Age is the first show the Chorus will be performing in this, their 10th anniversary year.
“Guns! Gags! Gizmos! Be shaken, stirred and seduced by the heady cocktail that is the Brighton Gay Men’s Chorus as they go back to the Bond Age. When an evil despot sets out to snatch our scoring secrets and crack the code of CAMP, our heroes take on all comers. And, after all, nobody does it better…!”
Paul Charlton
Chairman Paul Charlton said:“In many ways it’s hard to believe that it’s 10 years since Brighton Gay Men’s Chorus was first conceived, when a group of friends decided to get together in someone’s living room to sing and have fun. We’ve come a long way since that time, with highlights including appearing on BBC’s Last Choir Standing in 2008, becoming a registered charity in 2010, performing our first full house show at Brighton Dome Concert Hall in 2011 alongside our patron June Brown, and winning the Manchester Amateur Choral Competition in 2013. We look forward to continuing to sing together, supporting each other and entertaining our fans and supporters long into the future!”
Event: Brighton Gay Men’s Chorus presents: Back To The Bond Age
Where: St Bartholomew’s Church, Ann Street, Brighton, East Sussex BN1 4GP
When: Friday, May 1 and Saturday, May 2
Time: Doors open 7 p.m. for 7.30 p.m. start
Tickets: £12 per ticket (£10 conc)
To purchase online from March 22, click here: www.brightongmc.org
Also as part of their 10th anniversary celebrations, Brighton Gay Men’s Chorus have joined together with the Rainbow Chorus to invite all the LGBT choirs from around the UK and Ireland to Brighton for the Hand In Hand LGBT Choir Festival this summer. The Hand In Hand Festival will take place over the weekend of June 12-14, including workshops, performances and a major public show at Brighton Dome Concert Hall on Saturday, June 13.
According to the website Breitbart, The Coalition for Marriage, an organisation which opposes same-sex marriage, is mounting a campaign to stop a Tory MP supportive of the LGBT community, who took a high-profile role in pushing same-sex marriage legislation through Parliament, from being re-elected as the MP for Brighton Kemptown and Peacehaven.
Simon Kirby MP for Brighton Kemptown & Peacehaven
THE website reports that the Coalition for Marriage has 1,500 members in Brighton and they will be telling their supporters to vote for anyone other than Simon Kirby, the Conservative MP for Brighton Kemptown and Peacehaven, at the coming national election in May, because of his support for LGBT issues.
However, it seems the Coalition for Marriage have not done their homework. All candidates presently intending to stand in the Brighton Kemptown and Peacehaven constituency support same-sex marriage, including the UKIP candidate Ian Buchanan, who says that while he originally opposed same-sex marriage, now that the law is in place he won’t seek to remove it.
The constituency is home to a number of areas with large gay populations, including Queen’s Park, Kemptown, Saltdean and Peacehaven, where LGBT people are moving to in large numbers to get better value for money when buying property.
The constituency also includes the much more traditional Tory town of Peacehaven, where Breitbart reports “many voters are thought to be toying with UKIP as a result of their anger at David Cameron.”
A Coalition for Marriage spokesperson said:“We would encourage our supporters and more generally all eligible adults to attend hustings and other political meetings and to vote. We hope they will back those candidates, Conservative, Labour, Lib Dem, UKIP or other mainstream parties who backed traditional marriage, or who back meaningful safeguards to protect people like Adrian Smith, the former housing manager from Trafford, or Brian Barkley, the former Red Cross volunteer.”
Davey Jones
Davey Jones, the Green parliamentary candidate for Brighton Kemptown and Peacehaven, said:“It is outrageous that Simon is being targeted by bigots on this issue.
I totally support gay marriage.”
Paul Chandler
Paul Chandler, the LibDem candidate for Brighton Kemptown and Peacehaven, said:“I am intensely proud that the LibDems in Government achieved equal marriage and I fully support it.”
Nancy Platts, the Labour candidate for Brighton Kemptown and Peacehaven, added:
Nancy Platts
“I have been a strident supporter of Marriage Equality for as long as I can remember, and let’s not forget it was Labour votes that got it through parliament.
“I am proud that Labour has long been committed to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans Equality. We have led the way by achieving an equal age of consent, introducing civil partnerships and giving LGBT individuals and couples the right to adopt children.
“Although the Tories introduced Section 28 we repealed it and in 2015 Labour wants to introduce compulsory Sex and Relationship Education into schools and take a tougher stance on homophobic bullying in schools.
“We’re also proposing ‘Turing’s Law’ to offer posthumous pardons for gay men convicted under historic indecency laws.
She continued:“I am proud of Brighton’s place as one of the LGBT capitals of the UK.”
According to the Breitbart report:“A senior unnamed activist in Kemptown” said that same-sex marriage had cost Mr Kirby a number of supporters without gaining him a large gay following in the ward. The journalist Andre Walker gives no evidence of where he got his statistics from.
He wrote:“It would be unbelievable for the party that brought in gay marriage to pay for it by losing Kemptown but I’m afraid that is what’s going to happen.”
The two independent candidates intending to stand in the constituency, Matt Taylor and Joe Neilson, have also confirmed their support for same-sex marriage as has the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition candidate Dave Hill, who said: “I fully support gay marriage.”
James Ledward
James Ledward, editor of Gscene, commented:“It is encouraging that all parliamentary candidates from all parties intending to stand in Brighton Kemptown and Peacehaven have nailed their colours to the mast in support of same-sex marriage remaining on the statute book.
“It is election season and we must expect these mischievous reports by right-wing media outlets.
“The bottom line is that the Coalition for Marriage might well have 1,500 members in Kemptown and Peacehaven, but in the city there are more than 35,000 LGBT voters who will not allow our hard-won gains to be rolled back.
“The days when right-wing organisations could exert pressure on our elected officials to discriminate against us are over but it is important we remember those from all parties who helped enact those changes which now benefit us all.”
Construction workers across the country have been issued with rainbow-coloured bootlaces to support LGBT equality in the building and construction industry.
THE infrastructure group Lend Lease has been working with the LGBT equality charity Stonewall to promote the campaign.
Stonewall’s Rainbow Laces campaign aims to kick homophobia out of sport, and they have reinterpreted the campaign which was previously run with the support of football clubs to include thousands of builders at Lend Lease sites.
Workers based on sites including the Elephant and Castle regeneration project, the Zig Zag Building, the International Quarter in Stratford and the 13-storey Kings Gate have donned Stonewall’s Rainbow Laces together to kick homophobia, biphobia and transphobia out of their industry.
As part of this campaign, Lend Lease hopes to be the first employer from the construction and property industry to enter into Stonewall’s Workplace Equality Index, a top 100 of Britain’s best employers for lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people.
Lend Lease has recently launched its own allies programme, and has engaged with LGBT real-estate networking group Freehold.
Chris Edwards, Client Group Manager at Stonewall said: “We know that LGBT people still face challenges working in the construction industry. That’s why initiatives like this – and the work of senior role models and allies at Lend Lease and across the sector – are absolutely vital. We’re committed to working with organisations in the construction sector to help make the industry open and welcoming to all.”
Martin Coyd, Head of Health and Safety in Europe at Lend Lease and Chair of the Lend Lease Europe Diversity Council, added:“At Lend Lease, we pride ourselves on creating the best places and valuing the ways in which we differ.
“A diverse and inclusive culture makes good business sense. To perform at the best of our ability, we need a culture and an environment that embraces difference and where we can benefit from the diverse thinking, experiences and backgrounds of our people.
“When our industry becomes more inclusive, people can then be themselves, which allows them to reach their full potential. If we don’t embrace diversity we will lose out on the talent, skills and experience that come with it.”
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