Australia: Police can’t march in uniform in Adelaide Pride

BY NATASHA BARSOTTI — South Australian police have been ordered not to wear their uniforms if they plan to participate in Adelaide’s Pride march on Saturday, The Australian reports.

More than 3,000 people have signed an allout.org petition calling on South Australian Police Commissioner Gary Burns to rescind the order, which is described as “out of step with the rest of Australia and the world.”

“Commissioner Burns has the opportunity in his first year as police commissioner to catch up with the rest of the world by allowing SA police officers to march in uniform at Pride,” says Andre Banks, the online queer advocacy group’s co-founder. According to the South Australian Police (SAPOL), there are about 44 serving gay and lesbian liaison officers in the force.

It says its members are welcome to be in the march “out of uniform in their own time.”

Landing image: allout.org

Natasha Barsotti is originally from Trinidad and Tobago in the Caribbean. She had high aspirations of representing her country in Olympic Games sprint events, but after a while the firing of the starting gun proved too much for her nerves. So she went off to university instead. Her first professional love has always been journalism. After pursuing a Master of Journalism at UBC , she began freelancing at Xtra West — now Xtra Vancouver — in 2006, becoming a full-time reporter there in 2008.

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