Update: Anti-Israel banners are OK.....
It looks like Queers Against Israeli Apartheid will be marching....
Pride Toronto will permit groups to march in next month's parade with banners reading "End Israeli Apartheid," as long as they are officially registered.
Last year, a group called Queers Against Israeli Apartheid joined the march from the sidelines with similar banners, causing discomfort to organizers, according to Pride executive Tracey Sandilands. This week, she issued a statement clarifying that no unauthorized marchers would be permitted and political messages would be vetted.
She also said El-Farouk Khaki, the parade's grand marshall who drew condemnation from a Jewish group by speaking at a QuAIA event last weekend, is not an official spokesman and has promised not to speak about Israel in his official capacity.
Ms. Sandilands' approval of "Israeli apartheid" banners comes after Pride Toronto said all participants must carry messages "supportive of the LGBTTIQQ2S community," and that it would refuse permits to any group that violates its discrimination policy.
posted by GayandRight @ 11:01 AM
5 Comments:
It is much ado about nothing. If not for all the fuss raised by those who take offense to the choice of El Farouk Khaki as grand marshal and a few anti-Israel cranks, Queers Against Israeli Apartheid, they would have gone unnoticed.
I have no problem with them marching or their signs. But, Toronto Pride has rules - and either they are going to be enforced properly, or just forego the rules.
Khaki is a bad choice...since he's a loose canon....
The Pride parade in Ottawa routinely has an uninvited participant, a noxious bible thumper carrying a tall placard bearing bible passages that supposedly condemn homosexuality as immoral. The rest of the year this man can be found bellowing at passersby in the Byward Market. In both cases, the best thing you can do is ignore him while he makes a ridiculous public spectacle of himself.
This is not the same thing. It is perverse that you have the grand marshall of the parade criticize Israel - the only country in the middle east that has rights for gays and lesbians....while ignoring the horrible human rights abuses against gays in the Muslim world.
I reside in Ottawa. I have no idea how the Toronto Pride Committee came to choose Khaki as the grand marshal of their parade, but frankly, Torontonians have a history of making bizarre politically correct gestures that come back to bite them in the arse.
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