This is gay karma: When you get New York City’s LBGT Center to cancel its Israeli Apartheid Week for being too anti-Israel, God comes back and has the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis cancel its LGBT-friendly event on Saturday for the Catholic Association of Lesbian and Gay Ministries, because it featured a “same-sex marriage activist” pastor. Both events were canceled by bigoted men with loud mouths: Porn star Michael Lucas in New York, and anti-gay blogger Thomas Peters in the Twin Cities.
shut it down
What Happens When Loud Mouthed Jerks Get Their Way: LGBT Events Get Canceled
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suzygoo
Kol Hakavod Mr. Lucas!
Jose Lopes Bejarano
An event that promotes to boycott Israel (the only country in the middle east that enshrines gay rights) in a gay center has NO room in a gay center!!!
One Must Understand The Palestinian Abuse of Gay Human Rights http://is.gd/gAOF0
Douglas Gibosn Jr
No – they were canceled bigoted religious organizations
Timothy
I’m confused. The organization that is anti-Israel is not the bigoted one?
TimeToLook
The Gay Center in NYC was holding an (ostensibly) anti-Israel event ? LOLLOLLOLLOLLOLLLLLLLL. I always saw that Center as a bunch of dorks. Now I KNOW it. talk about a bunch of ghettoized Manhattan meathead know-nothings! What is it with the gay hatred of Israel and love of the Palestinians?? Do gays really have a secret innate wish to die?
Jamie
Lucas opposes an effort to boycott Israel. He has not attacked the Palestinians or any other group. So how is he a “bigot”?
I think Lucas should take out his wallet and offer to pay for a dance hall rental, air fare, and lodging so that these noble activists can have their dance in Gaza or the West Bank. It’s a win-win. Lucas’s money will benefit the Palestinian economy. The activists not only get to have their dance, they can meet the Palestinian people in person and tell them all about the LGBTQIAA community. And they can show their LGBT revolutionary solidarity with Hamas and Fatah. It’ll be a blast! How many would make it back home alive is another question . . .
Aaron
Actually, Jamie, Michael Lucas has a lengthy history of quite unambiguously bigoted remarks regarding Muslims. It would take you all of 10 seconds to find them, but I see you’d rather play with strawmen.
merkin
100 bucks says the organizers of Israel Apartheid Week were gay Jews.
Joey
Israel is an apartheid state.
Michael Lucas is almost universally loathed.
Joey
http://www.shovrimshtika.org/index_e.asp
or youtube: Breaking the silence
Their own soldiers acknowledge the atrocities.
TimeToLook
Merkin : In the gay world, which generally values the physical over the intellect, of course a number of Jews are going to be self-conscious and self-hating.
TimeToLook
Disclaimer : Not that EVERY criticism of Israel should automatically be considered anti-Jewish. Israeli policy can certainly always be debated and criticized like with any country. But for the Gay Center of NYC to even have considered being part of such an anti-Israel event is mindboggling leftist garbage.
Joey
“values the physical over the intellect”
In so few words you seem to make so many assumptions, none of them attractive about Jews, or flattering to you.
“Not that EVERY criticism of Israel should automatically be considered anti-Jewish.”
Oh gee, thanks for the permission. You are walking evidence that stereotypes, such as the one of Jewish arrogance, do not just pop up out of nowhere.
“But for the Gay Center of NYC to even have considered being part of such an anti-Israel event is mindboggling”
A ridiculous claim. That some people in some parts of Israel are gay-friendly does not constitute license for apartheid policies against a minority…an argument plenty of gays and others find very easy to identify with.
walt kovacs
to those gays who oppose israel and wish to work for her destruction
i will be happy to work with you in raising funds and organizing a gay pride march in downtown gaza city
oh…and as not only does israel have openly gay members of their armed forces….but there are arabs in the military (even though they are all exempt) arabs in the knesset….arabs in the judiciary…arabs in all universities (i believe that haifa university is 50 percent arab)….arabs in all fields
please tell me how that is apartheid?
never mind…ignorance breeds irrational hate
thank god for mr lucas
Nathan
@walt kovacs: Israel is an apartheid state, or are you saying you recognize apartheid better than Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu? What about the Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law.
America should cut off all aid to Israel and instead arm and back the Palestinians and their allies in the region. Stability in the region and goodwill towards America would result, as well as the toppling of an oppressive apartheid regime; sounds good to me.
Joey
“please tell me how that is apartheid?”
The power of willful blindness is truly amazing, and horrifying.
“thank god for mr lucas”
Yes, let’s all thank the good lord for that pouty-lipped prophet who uses the power of money and threats to force people to bend to his will. What a mensch.
Jamie
@Joey and Nathan (who we all know are the same dude):
You seem incapable of forming an argument. Simply assuming your conclusion (that Israel is an apartheid state) isn’t an argument, and it is moronic to think that you can persuade anyone by repeating it over and over.
Israel is not an apartheid state because the Palestinians are not, and do not wish to be, citizens of Israel. They want their own state, whether that be a state carved out of part of Israel or whether it be a state that replaces an eradicated Israel. But either way, they are citizens of a different state called Palestine. It is not apartheid for State A to exclude or limit the activities within its borders of citizens of State B. By contrast, Israeli Arabs consider themselves and have always been citizens of Israel and therefore live, travel, and socialize wherever they want. They vote, run for office, enjoy freedom of speech and religion, and have access to the judicial system.
By contrast, Black, White and Asian (what the S. Africans called “coloured”) were all South Africans. Apartheid targeted, isolated and oppressed South African citizens because they were black. But if the old white-controlled regime in South Africa excluded or limited migrants from Zimbabwe or Angola or some other foreign state, no one would or could accuse it of apartheid on that basis, even if those migrants happened to be black.
Your references to statements by certain individuals in South Africa is nothing more than an example of the logical fallacy called “appeal to authority.” In any event, these South Africans have a very “flexible” dictionary, which allows them to take completely inconsistent positions. Like how Mandela’s ANC insisted that apartheid was an issue of human rights that required various types of intervention by the UN and its member states, but at the same time insisted that they had no business lecturing Libya, Cuba, and the Soviet Union, their financial and military backers, about their “internal matters.”
Joey
Anyone interested in hearing the testimony of Israel’s own soldiers regarding the atrocities they committed, as well as the apartheid practices of Israel, check out the link and YouTube reference above, which will of course lead to other sources that detail the savagery that honest Israelis admit are being perpetrated on Palestinians…everything from the denial of water to the arbitrary and capricious demolition of homes in the middle of the night, to the strict limitation of movement, to barrier walls, to public humiliations, to the most vile barbarisms–all of which make sane people embarrassed for those here who are so blinded by reflexive apology of Israel that they have lost their moral sense.
Also see The Israel Lobby, by the Harvard and Chicago political scientists Mearsheimer and Walt.
Decide for yourselves.
alan brickman
Israel has no problem with gays..why does queerty have a problem with Israel??..sounds like Toronto Pride all over again….
TimeToLook
Alan Brickman : Possibly because Queerty’s David Hauslaib is such a self-hating Jew. And possiblt because the Queerties, typical gay transplants to NYC, know hating Israel is one of the gay “rules” you have to adopt if you’re part of the gay ghetto. Don’t question it, just accept it and espouse it, automatically. (Though that’s not meant to include those, gay or straight, who criticize Israel because of their own conclusions, even though I’d probably disagree with them).
TommyOC
@walt kovacs: “to those gays who oppose israel and wish to work for her destruction”
@TimeToLook: “…typical gay transplants to NYC, know hating Israel is one of the gay “rules” you have to adopt if you’re part of the gay ghetto.”
1) Just because a person protests a nation’s less-wholesome practice doesn’t mean they’re a) bigoted; b) hates a nation; or b) working toward their destruction.
2) It’s odd that anyone who is against the policies of Israel is automatically anti-Jewish or pro-Arab. This is analogous to trying to label someone who’s anti-American as anti-Christian or pro-Muslim. It makes no sense… until you consider…
3) …that for some reason people (often defenders of Israel’s policies) are making synonymous the nation of Israel with the religion of Judiasm. Tell me how this language doesn’t set the stage for disenfranchisement amongst non-Jewish residents or works at further alienating Israel’s neighbors?
—–
But let’s just treat everybody fair, okay?
For instance, the United States has a longstanding policy of denying military aid to nations in posession of nuclear weapons.
Despite a lack of self-admission for decades, international military and political experts acknowledge that Israel posesses nuclear weapons and has for a very long time.
And yet, because the United States doesn’t press Israel to definitively answer and prove/disprove their possession of nuclear weapons, they receive military aid from us in the form of planes, weapons and funds.
How can we treat one country different from every other country on the planet – including our long-time allies (e.g. Britain)?
Also, how many allies have sunk a U.S. Navy ship before and gotten away with it? (Seriously, look it up. USS Liberty.)
If you want a fair shake, start playing fair. The first way would be to play by the same laws that every other “westernized” nation plays by.
The second would be to not show favoritism in your citizenship process, the key hook on which “Israeli Apartheid” opponents hang their hats on.
TimeToLook
TommyOC : I already said your ponts 1, 2, and 3 are legitimate in some cases. Or at least due enough respect to debate. But that also doesn’t negate that the gay ghetto inhabitants just take the anti-Israel stance automatically, without giving it any thought.
Jack Fertig
While Israel is not altogether an “apartheid state” they have very much imposed apartheid conditions in the West Bank where Israeli Jews drive along great highways to spacious homes and Palestinians are kept behind checkpoints and under curfew.
It’s rather interesting to read all these comments sneering at conditions for GLBT people in Palestine, and yes, it is very rough, but in frequent conversation with GLBT Palestinian (errr… how many of you experts actually talk with Palestinians?) I find strong agreement that the Israeli occupation is making life harder on ALL the Palestinians and the conditions imposed on them makes the homophobia worse. GLBT Palestinians are active in the struggle against the occupation — and so are a lot of queer Jews who recognize that human rights are universal and not a zero-sum game of Us vs. Them.
Kieran
You silly naive gays. If you want to protest oppression and human rights abuses fine, but you’ve got to remember to stick to “politically correct” and noncontroversial subjects like Tibet and Darfur. You aren’t allowed to criticize Israel or Israeli policies in the Occupied (for over 40 years) Territories because if you do you are a Nazi, terrorist-loving anti-Semite.
Kieran
You silly naive gays. If you want to protest oppression and human rights abuses fine, but you’ve got to remember to stick to “politically correct” and noncontroversial subjects like Tibet and Darfur. You aren’t allowed to criticize Israel or Israeli policies in the Occupied (for over 40 years) Territories because if you do you are a Nazi, terrorist-loving anti-Semite.