Gayly Accepting

It's that time of year again. Toronto is preparing for its Gay Pride bash. In some minds, the event, once thought well of, has been tinged with wretchedly-obvious anti-Semitism, rendering the entire presentation distasteful, even though a minority group is responsible for tainting the entire Gay Pride parade-party. The virulently anti-Israel Queers Against Israel Apartheid (QuAIA) and D[ykes]AIA have forever changed the way in which many view this annual event.

Toronto City Council is conflicted over its role in helping to fund the event; on the one hand, it is a popular event, it represents tolerant acceptance within the broader community that such an event has become commonplace, and the festivities themselves, raucous and colourful, invite the presence of many onlookers, including tourists whose presence in the city is a commercial boon to business and to the business of tourism.

Those of the QuAIA persuasion had their puzzlingly spiteful inciteful sensibilities sharpened pre-parade by the admission-free guest appearance at the 519 Church Street Community Centre of Ali Abunimah, author of One country, a Bold Proposal to end the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse, speaking of "How Israel uses sex and marketing to distract from Apartheid". As members of his audience they will discover that his "solution" to the stated impasse between Israel and the Palestinians is to obliterate Israel's purpose as a Jewish state.

Among the committed QuAIA and DAIA marchers, contempt for Israel is difficult to overlook; the marchers wear tee-shirts emblazoned with swastikas, the concept of Israel as a Nazi state impelling their determined hatred for the only country in the Middle East where homosexuals have equality rights under the law, and gay pride parades to equal and surpass those that Toronto mounts are considered normal.

The irrational hatred for Israel is not difficult to pinpoint; any excuse, real or imagined will do to label the Jewish State as a pariah. Anti-Semitism is alive and well among those cohorts where, if they lived in the region, they would find comfort and security only within Israel, and never within the confines of Israel's neighbouring countries in the Middle East.

Participants hold flags during the gay pride parade in Jerusalem July 29, 2010. This year's parade marks the one-year anniversary of a shooting attack in a gay and lesbian youth center in Tel Aviv, in which two people were killed and 13 were injured. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun (JERUSALEM - Tags: POLITICS SOCIETY) (Credit: Reuters)

 

Explanatory legends put together by the Pew Research Center elaborates: "As some countries grapple with the issue of same-sex marriage, a new global survey finds many societies are divided over whether homosexuality should be accepted or punitively punished. 'There is far less acceptance of homosexuality in countries where religion is central to peoples' lives'." 

The following are fairly self-explanatory:

• Sudan: Homosexuality is punishable by lashings and the death penalty, for men on a third offence;
• Mauritania: Homosexual acts between males are punishable by death if witnessed by four individuals;
• Yemen: Unmarried men are lashed, married men receive death by stoning as rewards for homosexual activities;
• United Arab Emirates: Homosexuality is banned, full stop. Some dispute remains whether the death penalty is applicable;
• Saudi Arabia: No "gay" executions reported since 2002, but homosexuals are flogged and imprisoned;
• Iraq: Homosexuality is not strictly illegal, but gay rights groups report hundreds of gay men killed since 2003 by "death squads"'
• Iran: Death penalty is believed to have been used against gay men in the last few years.

"As the Times of Israel reports, gay Palestinian Arabs are flocking to supposedly repressive Israel. In the West Bank and Gaza, they face persecution and death. In Israel, they find freedom. Palestinian gays not only can’t come out at home. If they want to meet as a group, the only place they can go is Tel Aviv, where as the Times of Israel notes, a monthly gathering called the Palestinian Queer Party convenes. That’s because the repressive Muslim culture that predominates in the territories considers gays to be anathemas while Israel is a liberal democracy where, despite deep differences between various elements of society, people can live and do as they please. Though the “Israel is apartheid” crowd is at pains to stifle discussion of the gay angle to the Middle East conflict, it actually tells you all you need to know about the difference between the two societies and why hopes for peace need to wait until Palestinians embrace freedom for their own people as well as coexistence with Jews."
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