Gay & Lesbian group Twenty10 had yesterday planned to attend the Rediscover the River festival at Parramatta. This organisation offers support for GLBTI youth as well families of our community members.
Pictured above is their banned used to welcome people to their stall.
On the day an adviser to the Parramatta Lord Mayor, John Chedid, told the team of Twenty10 to remove this banner as it was “offensive”. As shared on the Twenty10 Facebook page:
Hey everyone, Just a big shout out and apology to anyone who came looking for the Twenty10 stall at Parramatta river yesterday. Twenty10 was asked by the Lord Mayor’s advisor to take down our banner as it was deemed to contain offensive language.
Twenty10 decided that we could not continue to support this event if we could not display who we are and the services we provide and left around midday.
We are following this up with the Lord Mayor’s office and will keep you posted on this.
If you would like to follow up with the Parramatta Lord Mayor his contact details are here:
http://www.parracity.nsw.gov.au/your_council/council/lord_mayor/provide_feedback
Note that the Parramatta City Council’s Facebook page and Twitter account can also be found at the bottom of the page.
I’m as keen as the team from Twenty10 to learn exactly how their banner was able to be considered offensive.
I’ll keep you posted.
Dr George Forgan-Smith
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