Well, I am heading to the downtown core. I’ve got my rifle over my left shoulder, my camera over my right, and I am well-protected against invaders of every kind.
Actually, I shouldn’t make jokes about this – especially not after the military helicopters, the invasion of ants (more on that another time), the earthquake, and the Ontario tornado.
As it is, I am still puzzled by Pride’s recently over-turned decision – my God, what constitutes hate if it isn’t using the word Apartheid? –and I feel for every Jew who is equally puzzled and maybe more than a little enraged.
Absolutely, I think Israel has made egregious politicizing errors and too often sees itself as special and superior, and I think Palestine has committed horrific human error, especially in the way of its women and children, many of whom have been sacrificed for the cause.
But the Pride parade is about inclusion – lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, two-spirited, queer, heterosexual – and I just don’t see what or how or why Palestine and Israel have anything to do with this picture in any way. And how is this kind of warring and grandstanding going to make a difference for the gay teen in small town Texas or the lesbian prisoner in Sri Lanka or the dead homosexual in Saudi Arabia?
The LGBTQLMNOP community have much to be angry about, even in 2010. Why not use the parade, then, as a platform for uniting; for coming together as one group and setting an example for the thousands of people in other cities and countries who do not have the great good fortune that we have?
As a latecomer to this crowd, I am (as a result of coming/out late) sick to death of the ostracization (as a result of coming out late – if you take my points), and it seems to me that if more people waved their flags in solidarity instead of raising one higher than another, members of Queers Against Israeli Apartheid, for example, would find another venue/outlet for their rage against Israelis, and we, as observers of and marchers for Pride, could do our job: help save the rest of the world from the ravages of hatred and bigotry.
Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.
Stevie Smith
