Toronto Gay Pride Throws Few Sparks, Leaves Happy Glow
0A small group called Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (QuAIA) almost didn't have a chance to march in Toronto Pride on July 4 because their stance was seen as fomenting hatred against Israel and Jews. City officials and Jewish groups had protested the group's inclusion, and the event was threatened with a loss of city funds, after already having been denied a grant from the Canadian government (for entirely unrelated reasons).
But a coalition of groups decried the decision to ban QuAIA, and Toronto Pride organizers reversed themselves late last month. The result? Opposing groups were able to air their views in a common public forum.
Toronto Pride had been beset by a number of controversies, including a denial of government funds earmarked for cultural events around the country in a bid to boost Canadian tourism. Last year, Montreal's Divers/Cit� festival was denied grant money from a Marquis Tourism Events Program purse, following a controversy in which former tourism minister Diane Ablonczy handed a check from the stimulus fund for more than $350,000 to Toronto Pride.
Ablonczy subsequently lost the post of tourism minister, with a fellow lawmaker, Industry Minister Tony Clement, taking over the job--and the grant's purse strings. This year, Toronto Pride was denied further funds from the Marquis Tourism program, with the government saying that it wanted to share the wealth among the country's cultural events.
City funding for Toronto Pride was also threatened, due to last year's involvement by the anti-Israel group. Toronto city councilor Giorgio Mammoliti said in April that if QuAIA were allowed to march again in 2010, he would seek a return of money that Toronto had provided for the event. Mammoliti, who is also a candidate for the office of mayor of Toronto, proceeded to submit a motion to revoke city funds from the event on May 11 and 12, according to an official city council document.
"Councilor Mammoliti, seconded by Councilor Shiner, recommends that: 1. City Council direct the City Clerk to advise the Pride organizers that the City of Toronto's 2010 funding and support will be revoked if Pride Toronto does not invoke the City of Toronto's anti-discriminating policies and if Queers Against Israel Apartheid participates in this year's Pride Parade," read the Notice of Motion.
"Over the last number of years, Pride's organizers have allowed a controversial anti-Israel group calling itself Queers Against Israel Apartheid (QuAIA) to march in the Pride Parade," the Notice text reads elsewhere in the document. "A video, Reclaiming Our Pride, recently created by Lawyer Martin Gladstone shows footage from the 2009 parade where QuAIA marchers carried signs condemning Israel with their members chanting the slogan, "Fist by Fist, Blow by Blow, Apartheid State, Has Got to Go."
Adult filmmaker Michael Lucas, who made the erotic film Men of Israel, wrote an op-ed for Advocate.com on Oct. 5, 2009, in which he questioned gays standing up for Palestine. "If you are queer and for Palestine it means that you are for the stoning of gay people," wrote Lucas. "It means that you are for the torturing and disfigurement of gay people. You are for the brutal harassment and 'honor killings' of gay people--because these are the things that Palestinians do to us."
Pride Toronto had initially indicated that it would accede to demands to ban the group, but that decision unleashed a torrent of criticism from within the GLBT community itself. Seeking a compromise, Toronto Pride reversed itself and allowed Queers Against Israeli Apartheid permission to participate in the 2010 march, but required all participants to agree to Toronto's non-discrimination policy. Queers Against Israeli Apartheid acceded to this requirement eagerly.
"We've never had any problems with the city policy and we haven't done anything to contravene city policy," said Queers Against Israeli Apartheid's Tim McCaskell.
Avi Benlolo, president of the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre for Holocaust Studies, disagreed with the reversal, saying, "We feel that Pride Toronto is no longer a representative of gay rights, but has now been unfortunately hijacked and has become a vehicle for anti-Israel bashing and agitation."
At the event itself, however, there was little controversy. A July 5 first-person account in Canadian newspaper The National Post by journalist Jonathan Kay related that QuAIA refused to allow a group of people wearing "balaclavas" to march with them, and noted that pro-Israel groups were out in force. Kay opined that the two sides "fought themselves to a draw," and reported, "Yes, QuAIA brought out a few hundred Israel haters--marching under a variety of CUPE, Trotskyist, and dissident-Jewery banners.
"But just a hundred yards away, an equally large, somewhat noisier contingent of unabashed Zionists were marching under the banner of Kulanu (Hebrew for 'all of us'), with Israeli flags aplenty, as well as placards listing (in great detail) all the ways in which Israel is one of the world's gay-rights leaders. They were joined by a few more militant types from the Jewish Defense League, including a woman dressed in a faux-Burqua."
Added Kay, "I'm guessing that the vast majority of the people who came to Gay Pride really had no appetite for Middle East geopolitics. But QuAIA started this fight, and good on the organized Jewish community for taking up the gauntlet."
The managing editor of Canadian LGBT news site Xtra! also filed a first-person narrative about his experience at Toronto Pride. Marcus McCann marched with and helped to organize the Pride Coalition for Free Speech, the group that started to oppose Toronto Pride's having banned QuAIA. Very little in the way of friction between the pro- and anti-Israel sides took place, however: McCann reported that he and anther organizer were called over when some individuals began to heckle members of the QuAIA and the Free Speech Coalition, which were "mingling" in the staging area.
"It was heated but non-violent," McCann reported. "Those who were waiting to march didn't engage, and volunteers who had been trained in de-escalation stepped in."
Both reports indicated that Toronto Pride, while throwing few sparks between opposing groups, left participants with a happy glow. Kay wrote that "gay and straight Jews alike bonded as they sang the national anthems of... Canada and Israel," while McCann attested that, "Toronto gave big love for free speech; what a joyful expression of queerness."