Hate is Prevalent at Gay Pride March
By: Sanctuary Space
Tags: Gay, Anti Semitism, Nazis, Jewish, LGBTQ

This month, the LGBTQ community celebrated Pride in cities around the country. We do this every year to recognize our freedom to be our authentic selves, live our truth, and love who we want, how we want. But wherever there is love and joy, hate seems to follow.

That was especially evident when neo-Nazis showed up to the Detroit Pride Parade with a singular goal — to incite violence. Openly carrying weapons and flanked by police for protection, this group proceeded to shout slurs at parade-goers. They tore up rainbow Pride flags and marched waving swastika flags. Detroit police said the explicit purpose of the group was to create a Charlottesville-style clash. Thankfully, the situation did not escalate — but it easily could have.

Nazi, neo-Nazi, White Nationalist — they are hate and intolerance in human form. But what happens when those of us who claim to be tolerant become so narrow-minded that we begin to embody hate and intolerance ourselves?

That is exactly what happened during the D.C. Pride celebration. Organizers of the DC Dyke March refused to allow Jewish groups to march if they displayed the Star of David. How narrow minded have we become that an ancient religious symbol is considered aggression to those who don’t like Israel? Event organizers said they wanted to ban all “nationalist symbols”, including the Israeli flag and the American flag. The Palestinian flag, however, was more than welcome.

The event page says the march was “meant to bring together all who identify as dykes through marching as an act of visibility and protest,” but by singling out a symbol of the Jewish faith in the name of creating a “safe space”, they are not bringing people together at all. They are creating more division and promoting anti-Semitism in the process. As one New York Times writer put it, “Once anti-Semitism required Jews to wear stars. Now it requires them not to.”

Sponsors of the event, including DC Dyke March, One DC, No Justice No Pride, HIPS DC, Casa Ruby LGBT Center, Black Lives Matter DC, If Not Now DC, DCATS, New Synagogue Project, and Muslims for Progressive Values should all be ashamed by how this display of discrimination unfolded.

In the face of hate, Zioness, the Jewish group that was turned away, took it in stride — standing in solidarity with all the queer Jews who want to participate with all of their authentic selves, including their commitment, as Jews, to Jewish self-determination.

The Jewish population has actually gone to great lengths to further the rights of the LGBTQ community. From physicist Magnus Hirschfeld, who promoted the validity of sexual diversity in his research, to Edie Windsor and Roberta Kaplan, who helped overturn the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), Jewish people have made countless contributions to further the mission of equality and acceptance for all. Israel itself is considered the only safe space for queer people in the Middle East. Thousands of LGBTQ Palestinians have fled to Israel to avoid persecution and, every year, Tel Aviv hosts the largest Pride celebration in the region.

We cannot forget what it means to be intolerant. Hatred as stark at that demonstrated by the neo-Nazis in Detroit is easy to point to and say “that is hate”, but hatred is also denying someone the right to express themselves — be it their sexuality, their heritage, or their religion. Just as love is love, hate is also hate and we must reject it in all forms and stand together in solidarity with our Jewish LGBTQ brothers and sisters.