Last Weekend presented me with an easy choice that finally became a moral dilemma: was the annual Brussels Gay pride worth my time or should I just spend time with some close friends.
After some careful consideration I decided not to attend the Brussels Gay Pride, simply because I have little to be proud about when I take a closer look at the gay scene in my home town, Antwerp.
Sure, we can marry, adopt children, sue our employer when our rights are violated, but then, that was not the deciding issue that made me stay at home.
The problem is attitude : obviously, there is nothing wrong with embracing the concept of love, acceptance and inclusion. But what if a large majority in our minority basically doesn t care for this attitude in real life?
The proof of the pudding is in the eating, so just try spending a Saturday Night in a random gay disco in Antwerp ( will do fine). Now observe the crowd, and try to spot a glimpse of what may resemble the glorified values of love, acceptance and inclusion . Sadly enough, you won t find them.
You will stumble upon blatant narcissism (countless 20 somethings guys strutting their stuff, with an arrogance that needs urgent psychiatric care), glorified materialism and worst of all: an overdose of prejudice towards anyone who doesn t fit in their obsessively limited, well-defined 18-27 age niche. And rest assured, this attitude is an ongoing affair .
If you care to watch, here is some video footage shot at last weekend s Belgian Gay Pride in Brussels: I m not one of the guys dancing half-naked on a street-car.
I spent last Saturday with some close friends who also feel that the focus on age and appearance makes most gay prides events to be avoided. It s kind of sad, while there is nothing wrong with the Gay Prides demands , there is definitely something wrong with the attitude of many gay men.
I spent my gay pride in the company of people who did no focus on appearance, age or demands, they focused on me.
We just had a great time, without the naked dancers on stage in Brussels 
After the usual incestuous we like you points from non-EU to other non-EU countries, Finland won this yearly campy trash contest with a group staging a bad Kiss hard-rock parody. Finland s attempt to turn this year contest into a campy freak show clearly succeeded, leaving many slightly dazed and confused , wondering whether this is the end of the Eurosong contest as we have known it for many decades.
In a country divided by at least one major language barrier, Belgians have a strange way of showing their unity. Once every two year, we (the Dutch speaking majority in Belgium) choose a song that has the dubious honour of represented the nation at the ldquo;Eurovision Song Contest rdquo; ( ) , an event that has become a showcase for the fact that Europe has some problems defining the word ldquo;border rdquo;.
While everybody knows that e.
g. the Ukraine is definitely not a part of the EU, we go along with the charade and just ldquo;send in our song rdquo; ndash; in English, with a catchy song title in French. A stale joke, ldquo;straight rdquo; from the Belgian heartland.
If you care to watch, he rsquo;re a feeds for the Belgian entry, a song that was shown in every gay bar in town, on a large screen with an audience hooked on campy performances.
Kate Ryan: ldquo;je t rsquo;adore rdquo; - shot on Patong Beach, Phuket, Thailand.
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