"Equality Forum" pinkwashing defended in seriously racist gay article

Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren
Equality Forum's keynote speaker
Drape this guy in rainbows, and he's
still a straight, war-mongering, racist
politician telling queers what to think.

The Equality Forum, an annual symposium (organized by a Log Cabin Republican and sporting a website with pictures only of white people), is making Israel its featured nation this year. In addition to being an pretty foul, deliberately-timed act of pinkwashing, the whole thing is creepily fetishy about Israelis. The keynote speaker is the Israeli Ambassador, who isn't gay -- but at least he's Israeli! At least three panels are described only as "Israeli speaker" or "Israeli moderator and Israeli panelists." (Update - no names even now that the forum is over. Their Israeliness is apparently all the information you need.) The Equality Forum website excitedly annouces that Tel Aviv was named "best gay city of 2011!" by some other random website. As with all things pinkwashing, information is replaced by empty slogans.

Accordingly, the Equality Forum is defended in a stunningly racist op-ed by the publisher of the Philadelphia Gay News, Mark Segal. Here's a sample:

"The [Palestinian] culture is so hateful to LGBT people that any LGBT activism is limited due to the very possible chance of violence... By supporting the Palestinians, one is supporting an anti-equality cause, if not supporting hate crimes themselves."

As any fan of racist, jingoistic writing knows, it's important to lump all members of a group together and then speak for them, just as Segal does. Especially when they've been speaking for themselves, but not saying what you wish they'd say. A blob called "The Palestinians" is much easier to dismiss as evil homophobic demons than actual Palestinians, especially queer ones, and especially queer activists.

It's also important to credential oneself as a gay liberal ("I have been a member of Peace Now"!) before deciding that Palestinian queers' analysis of their own culture and means for change is not worth mentioning, and endorsing Israeli Apartheid as the solution.

Palestinian Queers for BDS has written another relatively patient correction...

Update 5/14/12: Columbia profs Katherine Franke and Kendall Thomas, as well as "Rabbi Rebecca Alpert who was scheduled to speak on a panel about religion, and Pauline Park, who was also a member of the January delegation and was slated to speak on transgender rights, have also decided to boycott the Equality Forum’s global summit this year due to its selection of Israel as its 'featured nation.'"