New Pride window in Belfast City Hall

[TheWitchWon]

https://x.com/ripx4nutmeg/status/1925882503417454717?t=LdPsR5-OaXqN7CJw6pFKlA&s=19

The slogan on the window

"Save Sodomy from Ulster"
It celebrates inclusivity apparently and is the Lord Mayor's proudest moment as the city's Mayor.

This is a public forum, somebody starts a thread and other users comment on it, it isn’t my fault that you are unaware of this concept.

That’s fair enough. I’m just a bit sore this evening about large sums of money being thrown at things like this because I know lots of people who are really struggling at the moment. Arts and culture are really important, I know that, but... Probably not the thread for me tonight.

Why are you policing this thread? Are you paid to do so?

I'm guessing than any minute now, the transphobia will begin to surface.

25k is really not a large sum of money...

Then own your prudery and let others celebrate the window. Live and let live, remember?

No, we don't have slogans celebrating sodomy, what a weird way of looking at it for someone who lived through it. It's a small part of a stained glass window that represents a nasty chapter in our history.

But good art provokes a response so it's doing its job.

Yes, yes I am, I receive regular payments from JK Rowling, Julie Bindel and the Supreme Court. They pay me big bucks to inform on posters like you. And I mean BIG bucks 😂😂

Bingo!! Eyes down everyone 👀

We’ve already had insinuations of homophobia, allegations of being prudish, and expectations of transphobia, whatever will be next 🤔 I long for some originality from these people.

Damnit LBH are you hoarding all the shadowy right wing cash?

I've been TERFing for free for bloody years. I want my cut!

Perhaps you should offer up some fresh content that doesn't lend itself so readily to this?

I know what councils are responsible for in NI. I live there. It’s my general annoyance at what public money gets spent on. Priorities aren’t right across the board. Yes, I know it’s a bit unreasonable but it’s what I think right now after the struggling people I’ve interacted with today.

One doesn't need to be homophobic to realise it looks shit.

The sodomy reference is a bit immature. Yeah yeah, we get the Paisley reference, but turning the words around does not make it funny, and certainly does not make it relevant to a lesbian and gay-themed design - sodomy?

It's relevant to what it's commemorating. It's what the protestors wore.

Huh?

It marks an important time and fight for gay rights in NI. What's misogynist about that?

Some people are of the opinion that it's confused, garish, and disappointing, which is a shame as it is commemorating something that deserved a much better example of stained glass art.

Is that OK with you? or will you dismiss it as
'homophobia, you don't need to dress it up in faux hand wringing.'

Or even real hand wringing, presumably?

I am rolling in it @teawamutu I’ll throw a secret underground party later this year and I’ll divvy up, I promise 😂

I sometimes take the piss out of Belfast's pretensions to having an arts scene, but there are artists in the city who can create something a bit more visually appealing than this jumble of slogans and logos.

But I suppose municipal art is usually disappointing.

It's also very much on brand for Alliance to wrap themselves in a struggle that not only took place before Micky Murray was born - he can't help that - but that, when it might have made a difference, they couldn't run away from quick enough.

Suggestions please @suggestionsplease1 but obviously thank you for yet another attempt at policing what we discuss on here, you never fail to disappoint.

Belfast has a great art scene. Not as great as it was before we Brexited, but pretty good all the same.

What specifically do you like to take the piss out of @SionnachRuadh?

It appeals to the people who were there. The Belfast rate payers who campaigned for gay rights. Who know the story told by the window. The history of a place where homophobia was so rife that political and church leaders protested against the natural, factual state of human homosexuality.

It celebrates something that was achieved.

Didn’t Pride ban the organisation that fights against homophobia from attending their events?

Could you tell me something I don’t know? What does this window actually achieve NOW? When people everywhere are struggling to pay their mortgages and bills and feed their children, but sure, go and look at a £25k stained glass window, I’m sure that’ll make the kids less hungry.

Perhaps, but it could have celebrated it better.

What a pity they couldn't have come up with something that celebrates the people (not all of them rate payers, surely) who campaigned for lesbian and gay rights in a piece of work that is less garish and graphically confused.