The Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras is an annual gay pride parade and festival for the gay and lesbian community in Sydney, Australia. It is one of the largest such events in the world. Despite its name, it is not held on Mardi Gras (Shrove Tuesday) or indeed, on a Tuesday at all.

It began on June 24, 1978 as a protest march and commemoration of the Stonewall Riots. Although the organizers had obtained permission, this was revoked, and the march was broken up by the police. Many of the marchers were arrested. Although most charges were eventually dropped, the Sydney Morning Herald published the names of those arrested in full, leading to many people being outed to their friends and places of employment, and many of those arrested lost their jobs as homosexuality was a crime in New South Wales until 1982.

The event was held again in 1979, with the name changed to the "Sydney Gay Mardi Gras". In 1980 the first post-parade dance party was introduced, and in 1981 the parade was shifted to February. An increasingly large number of people not only participated in the event, but larger numbers of the wider community turned out to watch the parade. In 1988 the parade was renamed the "Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras".

The parade, whilst featuring many in the gay community with a penchant for exotic costumes and dance music, has always retained a political edge, with often witty visual commentary on their political opponents featuring in the floats. As homosexuality became more and more accepted in the wider community, more gay representatives of community groups and organisations have taken part in the parade, including the police force.

The Mardi Gras has continued to attract political opposition from various, mainly conservative Christian, sources. Each year the event is held, Fred Nile, a member of the New South Wales Legislative Council and a former minister of the Uniting Church in Australia, leads this opposition with a prayer for rain on the event. Though it has rained on several Mardi Gras parades (notably with heavy downpours prior to, and drizzle during, the parade in 1995 and in 2004), this has never stopped the parade. Criticism of Sydney's Mardi Gras was perhaps at its strongest during the early years of the AIDS crisis, and reached another crescendo when in 1994 the national broadcaster, ABC, telecast the parade for the first time (a huge ratings success for the network). For the most part, Sydneysiders now accept the Mardi Gras as an important and vibrant part of the city's cultural landscape.

The event was extremely popular and lucrative in the 1990s. A 1999 economic study showed that Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras added AUD99 million to the New South Wales economy. In the 2000s the Mardi Gras organisation struck financial trouble. This has been attributed by some to poor financial management, but others in the gay community have argued that this signals the fact that homosexuality has "gone mainstream" and is now so integrated into the wider suburban Australian community that the need to band together for such events is declining. Another explanation has been Australia's ongoing public liability crisis, which has seen massive insurance premiums impose a significant burden on community and public events, if not preventing them. However, Mardi Gras still enjoys much public support, and the event is sure to remain a vital part of Sydney culture.

Mardi Gras currently is a four week long festival in February/March each year and features many cultural, arts, activist and social events, including a launch party, the Fair Day, and the Parade and Party.

See also

• Queer culture
• Gay pride
• List of gay-related topics
• List of festivals in Australia

External links

• Official site

1978 establishments | LGBT events | Parades | Carnival | Sydney culture | Festivals in Australia