Steven Colbert just gets more amazing every week. He went to Iraq and stood before a cheering crowd of soldiers as he made fun of Don't Ask Don't Tell — proof positive that the troops on the ground are more than ready to end this shameful charade perpetrated by successive administrations, Obama included.
And last night, he had as a guest on his show (after mercilessly hitting Obama for cowardice and duplicity in "stonewalling" the lgbt community) Jim Fouratt, veteran of GLF, GAA, former proprietor of Danceteria - the great 80s disco. (This Danceteria bit made Colbert's comment on surviving the Disco Inferno all the funnier, though if 5% of the audience understood the reference I'd be amazed)
Colbert usually interrupts his guests and they rarely get a chance to really deliver their message. That didn't happen last night, and Fouratt got a chance to tell the story of the Stonewall Uprising as it actually happened (as opposed to the mythology of the event) to a national TV audience (even if it's cable!). Colbert isn't mere satire, he is queering the news. Here is the interview:
The next 7 days in New York City is a great time to see films about what it means to be queer in Israel today — from the point of view of queer Jews across the religious and political spectrum, from secular Zionists to the orthodox, from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. And the distance between those two cities can seem like the distance between the 21st Century and the Iron Age.
First, there will be an encore screening of City of Borders at NewFest, the annual lgbt film festival, tomorrow night, Wednesday, June 10th at 6pm. It’s an amazing film that chronicles the story of Jerusalem’s only gay bar, through the eyes of its courageous owner (who also became a member of the city council) and its patrons — including a Palestinian man who would have to sneak into Israel to feel safe about being openly queer, and a young man from a settlement community who was one of the people stabbed by a crazed Haredi at the Pride parade in 2006. There is also a cross-national lesbian couple, Israeli and Palestinian, negotiating the rocky shoals of relationship with the added burden of war and oppression. This film asks all the right questions and shows Israeli society with all its beauty and ugliness, with its commitment to equality for all and the discrimination and danger faced by Muslim Israelis by Queer Israelis. This is a fully nuanced view of the multi-faceted reality free of the sloganeering of the knee-jerk crowds on all sides of the issues. And as such, is a film that is important for everyone to see.
It’s all the more interesting to see in the context of the news. The Jerusalem Post reports that international Israel advocacy organization Stand With Us has invited prominent gay opinion-shapers from around the world to Tel Aviv for the Pride celebrations, to show the progressive face of the country and a view that shifts the focus away from the conflict between peoples.
This is clearly a concerted PR effort that has the government behind it, even as the city government in Jerusalem prepares for violence by the Haredi against the upcoming Pride march in that city two weeks from now. Certainly in the face of protests by gay groups in Toronto and elsewhere against Israeli policies towards the Palestinians this is meant to mark the difference between the two societies in treatment of sexual minorities, and to say to these protesters, pardon my French, “what the fuck?”
Of course, you can’t make grey white by comparing it to black. And let’s be clear, while it is certainly true that I’d rather be queer in Israel than in Cairo or Damascus or Ramallah, I sure wouldn’t want to be Palestinian in Tel Aviv.
What’s more I feel used. Not like a politically active gay man wouldn’t feel used in the US today (are you listening Barack? I think not). But last year, when there was a pro-Israel demonstration outside the United Nations against Iran's president Ahmadinejad, I was asked by a Jewish organization called The Council of Presidents to help out by writing a print ad to help draw crowds to the demo by appealing to people concerned about human rights. My copy made it clear that many people were oppressed in today’s Iran, from religious minorities to women to gay men. At first they were happy. But of course, when push came to shove, queer folk got shoved. They didn’t really care about human rights — it was about Israel, pure and simple. And while I support Israel, I am not interested in being used by the Jews in this way.
Yes, my marriage (if I were married) would be recognized in Israel. And I would be killed in Egypt. Makes being an Israel supporter feel like being a Democrat in the US, huh?
Below is a story reported by the JTA. As a wire service report there is no analysis of anti-semitism in the lgbt community (particularly in Canada since that's where this story originates from):
JERUSALEM
(JTA) -- A Canadian Jewish human rights group is calling on the LBGT
community to reject a "queers" anti-Israel apartheid program in Toronto.
"Queers Against Israeli Apartheid" is being held Saturday to
"reignite Toronto’s queer community in the fight against apartheid,"
according to an announcement on the Ontario Public Interest Research
Group Web site.
"Israel has now begun to frame itself as a tolerant, queer-positive
democracy," the announcement read. "This can never be reality under
occupation."
The keynote speaker is El-Farouk Khaki, co-founder of Salaam: Queer Muslim Community and Pride 2009 Grand Marshall.
B’nai Brith Canada called on members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community to reject the program.
“It is the height of irony to single out democratic Israel in this
fashion when it is the only country in the Middle East that guarantees
the fundamental freedoms of all its citizens without distinction," said
Frank Dimant, the executive vice president of B’nai Brith Canada. "In
stark contrast, the rights of the LGBT community in neighboring Arab
countries are routinely trampled on.
“Members of Canada’s LGBT community who are constantly battling
discrimination should be mindful not to become part and parcel of the
anti-Israel machinery that continues to churn out hateful and divisive
propaganda.”
Reports from South America today include a raid on a neo-Nazi group in Porto Alegre, Brazil where knives, clothes bearing swastikas and three homemade bombs were seized by police. Paulo Cesar Jardim, a local police official said that material gathered in the raid showed that synagogues and gay-rights demonstrations being were being targeted. The group, called New Land, wanted to "kill several Jews and gays at the same time,” according the Jardim. The area has the third largest population of Jews in Brazil, and also is home to a rather large population of German descendants.
Meanwhile, in Argentina, thugs attacked a celebration of Israeli Independence day in Buenos Aires.
South America clearly needs more gay bare Mexican bears bearing snack foods to bring peace and love to the region. Or not.
"The state's Roman Catholic bishops have been somewhat distracted, too, having focused their lobbying energies this session on defeating a bill that would extend the statute of limitations for victims of sexual abuse to bring civil claims, and have appeared unprepared for the battle over marriage."
Three videos, for a total of about 22 minutes, of smart talk that takes the discussion beyond simple same-sex marriage to wider social benefits for others as well, from the award-winning playwright and performer, Lisa Kron. At the Stonewall Seder in 2007, a ritual dinner celebrating what it means to be queer and Jewish.
So much is happening around the world it's hard to follow it all — from police beating gay demonstrators in Moscow, peaceful public gatherings in support of gay rights in Singapore, marriage rallies in NYC. And of course, the anti-marriage rally led by a coalition of people who believe their religious belief gives them the right to hate and impose their beliefs on others. Well, oddly enough, in Northern Ireland, a country that knows something about religious intolerance, St George's church held a service over the weekend condemning homophobia.
The Rector of St. Georges', Brian Stewart, said:
"To protest against homophobia which is the irrational hatred of gay
people is no less or no more significant than a protest against
anti-semitism. If we can, as a church, stand up and
say that hatred of Jewish people is wrong, we must stand up and say
that hatred of gay and lesbian people is wrong as well."
So even though a member of the Knesset calls for offering gay Palestinians sanctuary in Israel earlier today, even Israeli lgbt people could use some "sanctuary" and protection from anti gay religious violence as noted in Ynet this evening: " A group of youths attacked a 34-year old man at Eilat's annual Gay Pride Parade Friday, attended by about 3,500 people."
Meanwhile the Pope, in a speech in Nazareth, did his usual number about family values and the need to protect families from the queer menace. Yep. That's what I love about the "holy" land. It attracts some of the world's most intolerant people. Sigh.
Today a Knesset member from the Meretz party called on the Arab nations to sign an international declaration outlawing criminal prohibition of homosexuality. And he called on the Palestinian authority to halt the persecution of homosexuals within its territory.
At the same time he said that Israel should offer sanctuary to "gay Palestinian refugees." Now there is a bitter phrase indeed. Does he mean refugees from the territory that is now the nation of Israel who happen to be gay? Or does he mean refugees from the nascent Palestinian state bordering Israel who are fleeing because of anti-gay persecution?
Don't get me wrong. I am a supporter of Israel (if not its government policies) and I think it's the best place to be in the Middle East if you're queer in any way (despite the insanity of fundamentalist Orthodox Jews). My heart goes out to the suffering of the Palestinian people. And I am appalled by the suffering they inflict on their gay brothers and sisters. So certainly these people need a place to run to.
There was a documentary a few years back about Palestinian runaways — young gay men who fled to Israel, and as illegals, work as hustlers and are terrified of being deported home. It was sad on so many levels. And reading accounts of the terrors inflicted on gay men in Iraq today is bone chilling. So I can't fault MK Nitzan Horowitz for speaking out on the issue.
But at the same time, it feels somewhat like a PR ploy to the world, saying that when you look at the values of the West, and you look at what's going in the Middle East, you should be standing with Israel. It feels like waving a hand to distract from all the indignities that Arab-Israeli citizens must live with, and the difficulties in the Palestinian territory.
And despite this, I am proud that he made this call. Because you know at the same time, crazy fundamentalist parties in the Knesset will scream blue murder on this. As will the parties on the right.
