Article on QFOLC, QAIA and more: "Protesting apartheid at Pride"

Here are some excerpts from "Protesting apartheid at Pride" by Frankie Cook (June 22, 2011)
http://socialistworker.org/2011/06/22/protesting-apartheid-at-pride

"While QAIA received a surprising amount of support and interest at the first two New York City-wide Pride parades, the same cannot be said of NYC LGBT Center, which has kicked pro-Palestine queers to the curb. 

...The center essentially took the same position as the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs by saying that it's illegitimate and illegal to call Israel an apartheid state. Until now, the LGBT Center has been a place where activists of all sorts have come to organize--from antiwar, to abortion rights, workers' struggles and many others. 

GCN on QAIA & Queens Pride: Queer speech in queer space, what's the big deal?

Another vote against censorship, this one from the Queens Pride Committee and Councilmember Danny Dromm. From Gay City News: The World, Again, Comes to Queens.

'...Queens Pride also played host to Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (QAIA), a group who used the parade to loudly voice their opposition to the Jewish state’s policies toward Palestinians....

[Councilmember Danny] Dromm voiced uncertainty about the specifics of QAIA’s stance, but said he had no doubts about their right to participate in the parade. 

 “I don’t know exactly what their stand is, although I have heard some of the press around it,” he said. “I know that the Pride Committee, when they discussed the participation of that group here, felt that, look, they’re gay, they should be allowed to march and to express their viewpoint. We all agreed on that.”'

LGBT Center sit-in: weird success, failure & pix.

This evening's sit-in by Queers Against Israeli Occupation and Siegebusters, with support from QFOLC, went oddly unchallenged by the LGBT Center. About 60 people gathered in the lobby to hold the scheduled-then-banned QAIA meeting, since the Center had refused to allow QAIA to rent a room.

The meeting went on for about 90 minutes and broke just about every rule the Center has ever enforced about the lobby: meeting attendees sat on the floor, blocked the flow of traffic (not on purpose, but because there were so many people), spoke and applauded loudly, etc. The Center made absolutely no response -- staff just let the meeting go on. And amazingly, the sky didn't fall as queers discussed controversial topics and organized action.

While the Center was arguably wise to just let the moment pass without escalating (remember that in March they panicked and hired private security goons, ostensibly to protect the Center from the queer protest outside), it doesn't necessarily add up to good news. Instead, it seems like the Center will just go along with whatever pressure it most currently feels.

The LGBTQ community urgently needs the Center actually to stand up for queer space, for openness, for community and accountability. That includes refusing to be bullied into pushing queers out of the Center, making its operations transparent and public, and explicitly affirming that the Center is open to all facets of the community -- not just whenever it's convenient. Nothing like that happened tonight, and the fight goes on.

Here are photos from the sit-in. More will be listed here as we see them posted.
https://picasaweb.google.com/117132485970294538173/QaiaSitInPix#
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150269586599859.376954.716419858

Gay City News:

Critics of Israeli Occupation Occupy Center Lobby

Queer group terming treatment of Palestinians “apartheid” defies ban on its meetings

Village Voice: LGBT Center's self-imposed "public humiliation."

This VV post speaks for itself. And for a lot of us.
http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2011/06/gay_center_now.php

"This is not particularly shocking, but it is the most blatantly embarrassing example of how both the Center's Board and its executive director, Glennda Testone, have been willing to placate Lucas and publicly humiliate themselves. It also shows how thoroughly they are willing to turn their backs on the Center's 28-year history as a locale of controversial free speech in order to become just another censored venue catering to influential donors."

Gay City News sifts through the wreckage of the LGBT Center fiasco

Gay City News tries to sort out who exactly is pushing the Center to slam the door on queer political organizers. The verdict: a whole lot of Lucas' friends, Retail Workers Union leader Stuart Applebaum, maybe some elected officials (but maybe not.)

Also, GCN's Osborne asks, how much is the Center spending on a consultant to sort this out instead of actually talking to the community? (Way too much! Since bringing on the consultant, the Center's handling of the situation has just gotten worse. It's taking a major beating from all sides.)

http://www.gaycitynews.com/articles/2011/06/03/gay_city_news/news/doc4de95bd2022c0628479540.txt

"Opponents of QAIA said they spent the week following its meeting urging groups, individuals, and Center donors to contact the agency and ask it to reverse the decision, which it did on June 2... Lucas then said he had been copied on “well over 100 emails, but it's not 1,000” to the Center. Other groups and “lots of donors” contacted the Center, he said, though he would not identify any... 

Stuart Appelbaum, the openly gay president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, said he had spoken with many people, including elected officials or their staff. 

"The Center is developing a new space rental policy with help from Ritchie Tye Consulting. The Center did not respond to an email asking what the consulting firm would be paid. In 2007, Ritchie Tye charged the Gay Men’s Health Crisis just under $92,000 for consulting, according to GMHC’s IRS filings from that year."

How fire spreads: Jerusalem Post jumps on the "Center is anti-Israel" message

A new article from the Jerusalem Post calls the LGBT Center "anti-Israel" and says that anti-occupation queers are just providing "a fig leaf for Arab homophobia." Wait -- it just reports that other people are saying that. But you'd have to do some real filtering to understand that the JPost isn't endorsing that view.

In truth, the Center's board and staff are the farthest thing from anti-Israel: if anything, they appear to be so apolitical that they default to "shh, don't say anything about the Occupation!" And queer anti-occupation activists support Palestinian queers' demand to end occupation as a starting point for opening up civil society. But that matters not to sensationalist reporting.

This is the kind of baseless but effective pressure tactic that makes middle-of-the-road organizations buckle -- unless they have some core principles about free speech, openness and truth. The LGBT Center has not been strong on any of that lately, so this is worrisome.

http://www.jpost.com/JewishWorld/JewishNews/Article.aspx?id=223236

NY LGBT Center slammed as center of anti-Israel activityBy BENJAMIN WEINTHAL
06/01/2011 23:58

Manhattan institution providing fig leaf for Arab homophobia, Wiesenthal Center says.
New York City LGBT Community Center’s decision to host an event of Queers Against Israeli Apartheid last week has drawn sharp criticism. 

Prominent US gays and the Simon Wiesenthal Center on Wednesday laced into the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Center and Queers Against Israeli Apartheid. 

Dr. Shimon Samuels, the Wiesenthal Center’s international director, told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday that Queers Against Israeli Apartheid was a group of “self-hating gays” who “are working against the interests of their own brothers and sisters and should be shunned by all LGBT NGOs. By accepting them, the New York center is providing a fig leaf for Arab homophobia.”

Time Mag on queers & Palestine (will the Center's board read it?)

This blog is not about queers and Palestine -- it's about the Center. But one can't help pointing out: even Time Magazine gets that queers are organizing around the Israeli occupation, and it's a queer issue. The Center's refusal to deal with queer organizing on this issue smacks ever more of censorship reflecting the specific political opinions of the board -- and some donors.

Is Israel Using Gay Rights to Excuse Its Policy on Palestine?Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2070415,00.html#ixzz1NBCzfFtp
Next month is Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Pride month, an international season of parades, cultural festivals and street parties celebrating gay rights. But amid all the good cheer, tensions are rising over a controversial issue that is splintering LGBT communities. Around the world, major pride events are being used as battlegrounds to combat what some pro-Palestinian, progay activists are calling pink washing: Israel's promotion of its progressive gay-rights record as a way to cover up ongoing human-rights abuses in the West Bank and Gaza.

GCN: conservative gay institutions vs. progressive queer communities

Gay City News has done a pretty thorough job (in one person's opinion) of documenting the Center's brazen attempt to quash queer dialogue about Palestine and pinkwashing, progressive queer movement, and the Center itself. Now GCN follows up on the bigger picture of how queer movement has been pushed to the right. Messages on marriage, DADT and other issues have come from institutions that took on leadership through big funding (rather than the support of an active LGBT community, on which political groups relied before funding became commonplace.) Those institutions are focused on normalizing gays rather than carving out space not to conform to simplistic norms, and queers who object are silenced.

GCN's argument is that this dumbing down of queer politics is a function of an expanding set of people who identify as LGBT, and who are themselves less radical and more normative. But in the case of the LGBT Center, it looks like the staff and executive board members are far more focused on mainstreaming than the Center's constituency.

The Limits on Discourse

By Duncan Osborne

http://www.gaycitynews.com/articles/2011/04/13/gay_city_news/news/doc4da5f7209f50a967283017.txt

“I think that the scope of discussions over the past 30 years... has become increasingly limited and diminished in the broader community,” said Michael Bronski, a professor at Dartmouth and Harvard Colleges and the author of “A Queer History of the United States” due to be released on May 10.

...

That narrowing came as the community’s membership grew. In order to include new members, the radical politics that informed some early gay groups were softened and became more centrist.

...
Community groups have increasingly relied on the mainstream press to get their messages out. Mainstream outlets have never been interested in the community’s internal debates, nor will they cover sexual politics in the LGBT community

.

The Center's fear of controversy strikes again.

Here's Gay City News on the cancelled/moved GLYDSA meeting (link below.) Did the Center push to cancel another event because it was going to be controversial?! Interestingly, Michael Lucas is now calling the Center reps liars, and saying they deliberately went after a vulnerable group. Maybe the Center would be better off making decisions based on principals of community and openness, rather than trying to please a nutty loose cannon of a right-wing funder?

Michael Lucas Says LGBT Center Pressed Jewish Group to Move Meeting

Asked by Gay City News if the Center asked GLYDSA to cancel its meeting, the group wrote, “[W]e were not asked to cancel or move our meeting... Yes, we were pressured to cancel Mr. Lucas. This was in addition to potential unwanted intrusions by outsiders, including the press. We made the decision to move away from any potential disruption for the benefit of our members who trust us to guard their privacy and confidentiality. As long-standing constituents and supporters of the Center, we thought it might also diffuse some of the tension there as well.”

Village Voice: Some info on Michael Lucas, and the Center's initial resistance to kicking out Siegebusters

Village Voice's background on right-wing gay activist Michael Lucas. Maybe most interesting: reporting that the Center rejected his attempts to intimidate them. What made them cave?

Michael Lucas: The Zionist Porn Impresario Waves His Political Muscle in the Left's Face

... By the end of the week, Lucas became known for flexing his political muscle: He intimidated New York's LGBT Center into canceling its hosting of another group's Israeli Apartheid Week event scheduled for next month. And it took him only a few hours of emails and phone calls, plus a little more than $1,000, to do so.

...

"At first," he tells the Voice, "they tried to tell me, 'Don't intimidate us.' " He says he was told the Center had an "open-door policy." (Center officials have repeatedly refused to answer the Voice's specific questions on the matter.)
...

Within hours, the Center's open-door policy shut down. Lucas says: "[Executive Director] Glennda Testone responded directly to me, writing, 'We are canceling the event. Next time, maybe we can talk more about it before you do all of that.'"

Village Voice: Testone fails to make amends in mtg with Siegebusters

Village Voice's Steven Thrasher covers Siegebusters' meeting with Testone. Outcome: no movement from the Center.

'Party to End Israeli Apartheid!' Still On at Gay Center, Activists Vow, But With Picketing, Not Dancing

The Center's officials, smarting from criticism, have announced a March 13 "Community Forum," saying, "Recent events have led us to build on our process for providing space."
...
The Siege Busters folks are not impressed so far. After a week of silent treatment from the Center following their ejection, they say, Testone finally agreed to meet with them, but with tight restrictions on what could even be discussed.
...
When they arrived at the Center, Taylor and two others were escorted to meet with Testone and two members of her staff. As Taylor recalls it, "We basically said, 'We're here to help you handle the fact that you've made a terrible mistake. A terrible PR mistake, and a terrible political mistake. We'd like to discuss the way that we can, in a facesaving manner, reinstate this event and allow Siege Busters to meet at the Center again. We don't want to rub your nose in it, we don't want to attack the Center or you personally. The only thing we want is for the Center to rescind the decision.' "

Village Voice on GLYDSA/Lucas event cancellation

Village Voice's Steven Thrasher sheds some light on the difference between Lucas' and GLYDSA's versions of why Lucas' speaking event was moved from the Center. Snippet follow the link.

Gay Center's Feud Over Middle Eastern Politics Flares Up Again

Lucas was to speak about his role in lobbying for the cancellation. But at the last minute, the Orthodox Jewish gays decided to call off their own meeting at the center and hold it at another location.
...
Members of Siege Busters, and others who supported the anti-Zionist activists' right to meet at the Center, howled, questioning the double standard of allowing a pro-Israel group to host a controversial speaker, while forbidding a pro-Palestine group from doing it own thing at the Center.

But on the eve of yesterday's event, the Orthodox Jewish gay group moved it to another locale.
...
Fanning the flames of the feud, Lucas added, "The problem is that the Center got so much involved with anti-Semitic groups that now Jews don't feel safe meeting there any longer."

There's no evidence of that, and the Center's officials — and GYLDSA — deny that there have been any threats or pressure. "We are a small private group with no interest in publicity," a group spokesman tells us. "We received no threats, nor did the Center ask us to 'un-invite' Michael Lucas."

Gay City News on Center's public forum

http://www.gaycitynews.com/articles/2011/03/16/gay_city_news/news/doc4d81101464aaa069059499.txt

LGBT Center’s Ban on Israeli Critics Debated at Forum

March 13 town hall draws crowd of 100, deeply divided, with some faulting content standard for access

BY DUNCAN OSBORNE

Glennda Testone, executive director of New York City's LGBT Community Center.

Published: Wednesday, March 16, 2011 4:18 PM CDT

While the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Community Center can legally ban a group that opposes Israeli government policies toward Palestinians, it was clear at a town hall meeting held at the Center was that some in the community expect more from the 28-year-old institution than merely complying with the law.

“I think the Center cannot, in any way, make decisions based on the content or controversial nature of the event,” said Urvaishi Vaid, the longtime queer community leader, at the March 13 event. “I want the Center to be a place where people like Michael [Lucas] can come and organize and people like Siegebusters can come and organize.”

Village Voice on the Center's public forum

Here is Steven Thrasher's reporting on the forum. Boring comment war not re-posted here, but you can read it on Thrasher's blog.

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2011/03/more_sniping_in.php

More Sniping in the Gay Center's Battle of Zion

By Steven Thrasher, Tue., Mar. 15 2011 @ 5:38PM

Comments (22)

Categories: Featured, Gayz, Israel, Protest, Steven Thrasher

Share24

0digg

The LGBT Center

​Michael Lucas, the pro-Zionist pornographer who led thesuccessful effort to get the LGBT Center to cancel an anti-Zionist "Israeli Apartheid Week" event, once again dominated discussion at what was billed a "community forum" last weekend on who gets to use the Center.

The spirited, standing-room-only crowd, on the other hand, appeared to consist mostly of Lucas's foes: supporters of Siege Busters, an activist group that was trying to put on the anti-Zionist event.

At the heart of the debate was the right to free speech for anyone renting space in the Center versus the right of donors to have their say about who gets to use the space. That argument is far from settled.

A large number of those present seemed to feel uncomfortable allowing the Center to decide what is or is not "too controversial" or "gay enough." Some said they'd feel uncomfortable coming to a Center where a group using the words "Israeli Apartheid" was allowed to meet. But more said they had met at the Center for years around "non-gay" issues like war, the death penalty, and South African apartheid.

How the Center's forum unfolded: liveblogging from Tom Leger

The Center's public forum on March 13th was liveblogged somewhat awesomely by Tom Leger.

His intro to the issue is here: http://www.originalplumbing.com/2011/03/13/siegebusters-forum-lgbt-center/

Transcript of the liveblogging, plus some comments, is here and below:

Gay City News: LGBT Center announces community forum

Gay City News was the source of news about the community forum for most of the groups and individuals (as well as Siegebusters) who protested the Center's actions.

Responding to Israel Flap, LGBT Center Announces Mar. 13 Community Forum
http://www.gaycitynews.com/articles/2011/03/04/gay_city_news/news/doc4d70e596b68b2049621442.txt

Dispute over pro-Palestinian event cancellation continues, Jewish state’s critics plan Mar. 5 protest on W. 13th St.

In the wake of an emotional debate pitting the LGBT Community Center and defenders of Israel against critics of the Jewish state’s treatment of Palestinians living in the territory it controls and other community members concerned about the cancellation of a fundraising party those critics had planned at the West 13th Street facility, the Center is now planning a “Community Forum” on Sunday, March 13 at 5 p.m.
...
The Center’s announcement of the March 13 forum followed by one day failed negotiations between its top staff and representatives of Siege Busters about the possibility of holding a town hall meeting the evening of March 5 at the time the IAW fundraiser had initially been planned.

Gay City News on the protest @ LGBT Center

In its coverage of the protest against the Center's ejection of Siegebuaster, Gay City News covers "pinkwashing" -- painting occupation with a gay-friendly brush -- and the Center's de facto exclusion of Palestinian queers.

http://www.gaycitynews.com/articles/2011/03/08/gay_city_news/news/doc4d765d18f1edc820424638.txt

150 Picket Center's Nixing of Anti-Israel Fundraiser

Protesters hoist the Palestinian National Authority's flag at a March 5 protest outside the LGBT Community Center in Manhattan. (GAY CITY NEWS)

...The crowd of roughly 150 who turned out for the early evening protest voiced angry criticism of the Center for its decision 11 days before to bar a fundraising party by Siege Busters. The event would have provided money for a new flotilla to challenge the Israeli navy’s blockade of the Gaza Strip.
...

“The idea that the Center’s core mission does not include concern for queer Palestinians is a very odd definition of a core mission,” said Naomi Brussel, speaking for Siege Busters. Glennda Testone, the Center’s executive director, said in a February 22 release that controversy over the party had begun “to distract from our core mission.”

...

For Testone and the Center, however, the toughest challenge could come from critics such as Rami Al-Bakri, a 22-year-old Palestinian who has been in the US for the past four years studying (he declined to say where).

Pointing to daily humiliations he and his family endure at home, he said, “Then I come to New York and experience the same thing at the Center. It’s something I expect from the Israeli state, but not from the Center.”

Asked about the treatment of queers by Palestinian leaders and whether pro-Palestinian activists in the US can credibly claim to be speaking for LGBT people in Gaza and the West Bank, Al-Bakri, who is affiliatged with alQaws for Sexual & Gender Diversity in Palestinian Society, responded, “Queers and women have always been part of the struggle for Palestinian rights. As a Palestinian identified as queer, I’ve always been part of the movement since I was a kid.”
...

“Am I giving up on my society to be gay? No,” he said, emphasizing his determination to stay with the cause in his homeland. “In Palestine, I fight for my right to be queer in the Palestinian movement. Here, I fight for my right to be Palestinian in the queer movement.”

Gay City News on the Siegebusters ban

Gay City News' Paul Schindler writes a clear profile of who Michael Lucas is in this debate -- and the plethora of longtime queer community activists calling for the Center to stop heeding Lucas' claims that opposing occupation is anti-Semitic. Several statements appear here that aren't elsewhere. Snippets follow the link.

http://gaycitynews.com/articles/2011/03/04/gay_city_news/news/doc4d6e85181f2bb836438816.txt

Firestorm Over LGBT Center Jettisoning Critics of Israel

Michael Lucas, the Center's Glennda Testone, and Siege Busters' Sherry Wolf.

The February 22 decision by New York’s LGBT Community Center to cancel a party planned to mark Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW), an annual international mobilization by critics of the Jewish state’s treatment of the Palestinians who live in the territory it controls, has sparked outraged response from many LGBT New Yorkers, including a good number of prominent Jewish lesbian and gay activists — but has also won support from other progressive Jewish gay leaders and journalists.

...

Village Voice on how it all started

Steven Thrasher sums up the happenings -- and the serious unanswered questions -- that launched the outrage at the Center's booting of Siegebusters and their fundraiser party at the end of February. Snippets follow the link.

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2011/02/apartheid_week.php

Well, that was quick. We were looking forward to covering "Party to End Apartheid!," an Israeli Apartheid Week event on March 5 at the LGBT Center, where those two worlds would collide.

Our excitement was short-lived. Pornographer Michael Lucas was furious that the Center would hold such an event and vowed "a boycott that would certainly involve some of the [NYC LGBT] Center's most generous donors." Lucas, one of gay porn's most outspoken figures, is known equally for his "Men of Israel" films, his rabidly right-wing political writing for the Advocate, and his custom-made dildo in the shape of his own manhood.
...