Getting personal with Michael Lucas (thanks, Mondoweiss.)

We don't like to pay much attention to Michael Lucas. Yes, he was the initiator of the "Muslim panic" at the LGBT Center which led to the Center's horrifying series of repressive actions: panic-cancelling a Palestine-related event; holding a kangeroo "community forum" in which they totally ignored the calls of the queer community to resist the panic; suddenly reframing the Center's mission as fulfilling social service contracts instead of being home to a community engaged in messy but important self-determination; totally ignoring the calls from queers of color, immigrant queers, trans people etc. that the Center's actions were further closing it off to queers who are already marginalized; banning all mention of Palestine (unless you could talk about Palestine without talking about Israel's occupation, so... just all mention of Palestine); refusing for two years to meet with the community or discuss the issue; and generally acting like a right-wing fortress instead of a community center.

But Lucas, we always say, is not the point. The point is the Center and the web of politics and money -- mostly not queer at all --- that seeks to squash critiques of Israel.

That said, it's worth a moment to look at who Michael Lucas is. Two reasons: first, he's a major advance-man for pinkwashing. Maybe he's to the right of other defenders of apartheid like Stuart Appelbaum, but his extremeness gives them cover to claim that they're centrists. And the queers who are reached by his porn may not be activists, but their consumption of pro-Israel, anti-Arab propaganda definitely shapes the queer community as a whole.

Second, Lucas' extremeness doesn't rob him of credibility as it should. He's the partner of the Center's former board chair. He's a full-fledged, much accepted member of a social network that includes wealthy and powerful queers -- in fact, Lambda Legal held a Fire Island fundraiser at his house last year. There is a massive failure of queer power brokers and institutions to say "this guy is a known racist, let's stay away" -- much less challenge him.

So let's have a look. Mondoweiss posted a story last week with some links to Lucas' history. We've all been quoting his well-known, deeply revolting statement about Muslims, reposted in Queerty in 2008:

'I hate Muslims, absolutely. It's a horrible, horrible religion. It's a plague. People ignore me the way they ignore Rush Limbaugh because he’s a drug addict. Michael Lucas is just a porn star. People take time to call me irrelevant. They write three detailed pages on a blog about my irrelevance. … There are moments in life when silence is your fault and truth is your responsibility. The religion, the institution, the system of Islam — they are as talented and creative and passionate as anyone else. But they’re stuck in a horrible lie, brainwashed from birth to death. And now they have been stuck in time Jsince the 7th century. They have not contributed to civilization in any way, in any field — political thought, science, music, architecture, nothing for century after century. What do they produce? Carpets. That's how they should travel because that’s the only way they travel without killing people.'

But Mondoweiss rightly prompts us to look further. Let's get really familiar with this beast. Let's all primary-sourced on his ass.

• Here are his ravings at The Advocate.
• Here's a 2008 article at the Forward where Lucas talks about his pinkwashing initiative. ('“Nobody goes to Israel for Golda Meir, I’m so sorry,” Lucas said in heavily Russian-accented English."')
• Here's a 2008 US News article that references Lucas' NY Blade piece (no longer online) in which he compares the Koran to Mein Kampf.
• Here's a blog repost of an unhinged Frontpage Mag interview with Lucas.

("Europe is very anti-Semitic and very nationalistic, which is a bit different than in America... It was not the primitive, Russian form of anti-Semitism, but rather a ridiculous Germanic form. They were obviously taught not to act on their anti-Semitism, but rather to keep their mouths shut. I remember when I would say that I was Jewish, people would reply, “No problem.” I would tell them that I didn’t care whether they had a problem or not. Then they will say, “When I talk to you, I don’t see a Jew, I see Michael.” My response was usually, “Where the hell are you looking?” So the Germans and I were not on great terms. As for the French, I shouldn’t even begin to elaborate. They completely sold themselves to Sons of Allah. If a Muslim steals your wallet, he will claim that he chased you down because you hate Muslims and not because he stole from you.")

• Here's the Boston Edge article, cited in Mondoweiss, about the uproar at Stanford over Lucas' appearance there. That appearance led to a dialogue in and around the Stanford Daily (no longer online) in which Lucas reiterated everything hateful he'd previously said about Muslims, queers who don't agree with him, and everyone else.
• Here is a celebratory repost, on jihadwatch.org, of Lucas' retort in the Stanford Daily to those who called out his racist rants.

There's nothing reticent about the guy. Let's look at the other places he's been, and the other things he's said.

And let's not let people, politicians or institutions get away with staying connected to him.

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Gay institutions vs. progressive queers, in the Village Voice ("Does Gay Inc. believe in free speech?")

We've been thinking it, you've been thinking it, and now the Village Voice's Steven Thrasher has written an excellent article on it: GLAAD, HRC, the LGBT Center and other gay institutions are obstacles to queer community organizing, not helpers. They answer to their boards full of finance industry gay-bots, not queers. They use queers -- and especially queer tragedies of violence and exclusion -- as their platform for taking a seat at the table with corporations and politicians. There, they hold on to power by not making waves, and pulling the curtain over queers who do.

The article is "Does 'Gay, Inc.' believe in free speech? In the battle over gay rights, dissent during wartime isn't always tolerated."  It ranges over the Center's weird, wrong banning of Palestine-supporting queer groups, and the larger lockdown on queer political organizing that squeezes out "radical" ideas like ensuring that all people can access health care. It charts the almost-funny contortions that BGOs have to go through to define homophobia and equality in ways that serve them, but make no sense in real life. Here are some pull-outs:

'I first learned the term "Gay Inc." from Lieutenant Dan Choi when I was writing a profile about him in 2010... Choi was a darling of the gay establishment, including the Human Rights Campaign, the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, and the Courage Campaign. His name was attached to e-mail blasts routinely to raise money or rally activists.

But Choi was so outspoken, he couldn't really be "handled." He chafed at the PR box Gay Inc. tried to put him in and was apt to go "off message" anytime. He described Gay Inc. as "those groups so desperate for a place at the table, they'll do anything to keep their place at the table."

By the day "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" was first on the floor of the U.S. Senate in September of 2010, Choi had worn out his welcome. As we got lunch in the cafeteria before the failed vote, a good chunk of Gay Inc.—HRC, SLDN, and various staffers of Democratic legislators—was assembled at one table like a high school clique. Choi was clearly at odds with them.

Almost two years later, I was reporting last week from the East Room of the White House as much of Gay Inc. attended President Obama's LGBT Pride Month reception. There was no denying, as the president affirmed his commitment to a number of Gay Inc.'s issues, that there is a benefit to having a place at the table. But many of the most radical voices that had helped push Obama to that point (including Choi) were noticeably absent.'

and

'The first and only time I covered an HRC event in person was on the eve of the National Equality March in 2009 in Washington, D.C. President Obama addressed 3,000 donors at a black-tie gala in the Washington Convention Center, but he was only a warm-up act, he joked, for a rising talent named Lady Gaga. 

The real stars of the evening for me (a neophyte at such functions) were the ads. There were endless videos promoting various corporations, mostly defense contractors. Like supporting a telecom merger, I wondered naively, "What does peddling the latest hardware in the military-industrial complex have to do with being gay?"'

There's more -- it's a good read! One correction to the article: ACT UP chapters around the country have been demanding single payer health care for many years. Real queer organizing lives on in the shadow of the Gay Inc. behemoths.

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Reporter stumped by pretzel logic of censorship.

From Duncan Osborne's blog:
http://herdandscene.blogspot.com/2011/06/can-someone-please-explain.html

'I was struck by one thing on June 11. Lucas and the folks who joined him in pressuring the Center to give these two groups the boot prevented them, or tried to, from meeting and talking among themselves. When I asked Lucas if he had any plans to challenge the participation of Queers Against Israeli Apartheid in the gay pride marches in Queens, Brooklyn, and Manhattan, he said “I don’t care. They can do whatever the hell they want.”

So it is beyond the pale for these groups to meet quietly, but perfectly acceptable for them to carry their message to what will have been hundreds of thousands of people by the time they are done marching in the June 26 pride march on Fifth Avenue? So the objection is what? I remain confused.'

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Lucas: Out against truth and history on more than one front.

Queers for an Open LGBT Center has not focused on Michael Lucas. He's vile, but it's the NYC LGBT Center that's the point. That said, Lucas' deliberateness in snatching away progressive queer political space -- and the huge latitude he's been given by queer institutions to do it -- is worthy of notice, if only because it's  a surprise to many of us who believed that even queers who deeply disagreed probably shared some common ground. Now that it's not necessarily radical to be queer anymore, do we still share that ground?

From PinkwatchingIsrael.com, here's a piece on how deeply political was Lucas' film "Men of Israel," using the icon of unashamed public queer sexuality to virtually kill off the Palestinian history of a village, and claim it for Israel. The tactic will be familiar to New Yorkers fighting off Lucas' attacks: he tells a silly fictitious story ("The Center is supporting terrorist groups!), tags it with buzz words about queer community and freedom ("they're providing a fig leaf for Arab homophobia!"), and then spreads it so far and wide that it no longer matters whether it's true -- it's just part of the narrative that everyone "knows."

http://www.pinkwatchingisrael.com/michael-lucas-in-lifta-village-on-israel%E2%80%99s-attempted-colonization-of-the-queer-narrative/

...It was during this backlash [about Siegebusters meeting at the LGBT Center] that Max Blumenthal called attention to the fact that Michael Lucas has previously shot pornography in Israel in a depopulated Palestinian village. Indeed, watching this video excerpt of a conversation between Lucas and one of his actors I couldn’t help but feel sick on my stomach when I recognized the village to be Lifta — the village that Yacoub was driven out of is somehow the perfect scene for an on-camera sex romp for Lucas and his buddies. The damage is only furthered by Lucas’s promotional statements for the film:

…we went to an abandoned village just north of Jerusalem. It was a beautiful ancient township that had been deserted centuries ago [sic.]…however, that did not stop our guys from mounting each other and trying to repopulate it. Biology may not be the lesson of the day but these men shot their seeds all over the village. [emphasis added]

It is a strange thing to attempt to “repopulate” a village whose original inhabitants are simply prevented from returning under the threat of state force. Hence here we have perhaps the first example of what some have termed “desecration porn.” 

At this point it’s difficult not to ask the obvious question—as others have — what if somebody made a sex tape on the location where an anti-Semitic pogrom had been carried out? ... A man who has filmed LGBT-themed porn on the site of an act of ethnic cleansing is not only given a voice in discussions of what social justice in LGBT spaces should look like, he is given absolute authority in this case to decide who is and who is not allowed to even participate in that conversation.

Here's the original blog post exposing "Men of Israel" as "desecration porn."
Money Talks, Desecration Walks: Nakba Porn Kingpin Michael Lucas Bullies LGBT Center Against Anti-Apartheid Party (MaxBlumenthal.com)

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Michael Lucas kicks up again.

This email from Michael Lucas circulated after the LGBT Center announced that it has approved meeting space for Queers Against Israeli Apartheid. Terrifyingly, it proposes that the Center is not allowed to host any political group meetings, and that the Center is itself an "anti-Israeli nest." (What does a pro-Israel nest look like, then?!)

If ever there were a time to shore up the Center's principles of openness and commitment to queers' long history of political organizing, it's now.

From: Michael Lucas
Date: Wed, May 25, 2011 at 4:47 PM
Subject: Bad News
To: Michael Lucas

Dear friends-

I have a very unfortunate update. The group Queers Against Israeli Apartheid was just granted the ability to have their meetings in the LGBT Center. As I always believed, the LGBT Center of NY is an anti-Israeli nest and we did not put enough pressure on them to stop their efforts to harm the Jewish state. But we have the power to stop them. The LGBT Center receives city, federal, foundation, and private funding. We have to work on reaching the government officials and ask them to cut that funding unless the Center changes its decision. We should also reach out to different organizations and individuals and collect money to take a full page ad in the New York Times Magazine. I know this is not cheap and I myself will generously contribute. I also believe that their support of political activity may jeopardize their ability to maintain tax-free status. I would appreciate hearing your thoughts, input, and suggestions. I do need your help.


Best regards,

Michael Lucas

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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.”

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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.'"

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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."

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Lucas surfaces again at the Center, then cancels himself.

On March 17th, the Gay and Lesbian Yeshiva Day School Alumni Association (GLYDSA) posted this announcement of an event -- at the Center -- featuring Michael Lucas. A few days later, Lucas seems to have pulled the event from the Center himself. (Read more after the jump.)

Queers for an Open LGBT Center, along with some members of Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, intended to leaflet the event to decry the hypocrisy of the Center -- giving the controversial Lucas a platform, even as they bars others from speaking either at his behest or because they're "too controversial."

March 24, Thursday 8:00 PM: Monthly GLYDSA meeting with special guest Michael Lucas. We will be discussing the recent events of the past few weeks that have pitted anti-Israel organizers against the Center, as well as other topics of interest to our community, followed by socializing. Michael Lucas is a well-known columnist, activist, film maker and strong supporter of gay rights and Israel. ...As a follow up to the open community meeting that was poorly attended by the pro-Israel side, The Center is receiving a lot of pressure to re-allow Siegebusters and other anti-Israel groups to rejoin the center. The Center wants to do the right thing but needs our support. Please take a moment to go to the below link and send in your thoughts -- this comment box was created just for thoughts about space rental. http://mycenter.gaycenter.org/Page.aspx?pid=324

Just a few days later, though, GLYDSA announced that they would not host Lucas at the Center. They had moved their meeting. A Village Voice report quoted GLYDSA as saying that they'd received "threats." According to a reporter looking into the issue (story not yet written): "Lucas claim[ed] this is related to Center being unable to ensure the event would not be interrupted as there had been 'threats.' Center says they had nothing to do with move."

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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.

...

Lucas’ linking of IAW to anti-Semitism — a charge leveled by many defenders of Israel against a movement whose mission is BDS: boycott, divestment, sanctions — proved particularly stinging to the organizers and supporters of the Center event, many of whom are Jewish, when it became clear that the accusation apparently had traction with Testone and her board.

...

He has also been a harsh, even inflammatory critic of Muslims. ... In another Advocate essay about the Muslim Army psychiatrist arrested in the killing of 13 at Fort Hood last spring, he wrote, “We knew he simply carried out the order of his guide, the Koran.” While now saying, “Anything under the sun is possible,” Lucas told Gay City News that Islamic faith is essentially incompatible with US military service.

...

Leslie Cagan, a longtime peace activist, picked up on Taylor’s discussion of the Center’s tradition of diversity, writing, “The Center has always been one of the few places in New York City where all parts of the queer community have been welcome, and where our allies and friends have also found a safe space. Our community, indeed the nation as a whole, needs to know we can have open and fear-free discussions about so many important issues. Now is not the time to slam the door shut.”

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