The War in Gaza Is Dividing the LGBTQ+ Community

Liam Stack

Sat, June 22, 2024 

A sign in support of Palestine, seen at a Brooklyn Pride event in Park Slope on Saturday, June 8, 2024. (Laila Stevens/The New York Times)


FIRE ISLAND PINES, N.Y. — In the upscale gay resort town of Fire Island Pines, colorful flags honor LGBTQ+ history makers like actress Wanda Sykes and drag queen RuPaul in a small park near the harbor. For a few hours this month, one flag also honored Rep. Ritchie Torres, the first openly gay Afro Latino member of Congress.

But Torres is also an outspoken supporter of Israel, and not long after his flag went up, it was torn down by the gay activist group ACT-UP, which was also honored at the park, and replaced with two flags, one of which honored queer Palestinians.

Within hours, the flag for queer Palestinians was also torn down by Michael Lucas, a pornographic performer and filmmaker with a history of anti-Muslim statements.

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The dispute on Fire Island, just off Long Island, was just one expression of the tensions over the war in the Gaza Strip that have wracked American public life. But within New York’s LGBTQ+ community, whose members hail from every ethnic and social background and tend to be highly attuned to issues of social justice, the war has touched off some especially raw conflicts.

Those divisions have been on full display during Pride Month, a time typically focused on celebration and solidarity.

The fight over how the community should respond to the war in Gaza has played out in fiery online comments and false accusations of pro-Hamas activity. On Fire Island, the flag conflict has pitted Torres and local homeowners, including Lucas, against the very activists honored at the park. Elsewhere in New York, similar, if lower-profile, disputes have shaken gay bars, LGBTQ+ fundraising dinners and Pride festivities.

“I think queer people are mostly on one side of the debate,” said Afeef Nessouli, a journalist and activist who has been highlighting the stories of LGBTQ+ people in Gaza on his popular social media channels since the war began. “It feels like queer people are coming out for Palestine in a really large way.”

Indeed, members of the LGBTQ+ community overwhelmingly self-identify as politically liberal or moderate, according to polls. A majority of Democrats have disapproved of Israel’s actions since at least last November, one month after the war began, according to Gallup surveys.

The war in Gaza began Oct. 7 after a Hamas-led attack on Israel killed roughly 1,200 people and resulted in 250 more taken to Gaza as hostages, according to Israeli officials. Since then, more than 36,000 people have been killed in Gaza, health officials in the territory said. Almost 2 million people have been displaced from their homes in Gaza, and the region’s civilian infrastructure has been destroyed.

Last month, the top prosecutor of the International Criminal Court said he was seeking arrest warrants for the leaders of both Israel and Hamas on charges of crimes against humanity.

But supporters of Israel, including some vocal LGBTQ+ people, often argue that the community should support the country because, while it lags behind Western countries on some gay rights issues, it is more tolerant than other places in the Middle East.

In Gaza, like in many places in the Arab world, homosexuality remains taboo, and gay life happens largely behind closed doors. Government persecution is not uncommon, and in one high-profile case, Hamas killed a prominent commander after accusing him of embezzlement and homosexuality.

“Did it ever occur to them that Hamas is a barbaric oppressor of Queer Palestinians?” Torres, who represents the Bronx, said in a statement after the Fire Island controversy, in reference to the activists who removed his flag. “A Queer Palestinian is far freer and safer in Israel than in a Gaza Strip ruled by Hamas.”

Pro-Israel social media accounts, including one run by the Israeli foreign ministry, have made similar arguments. One post that was shared by the Israeli government in November shows a smiling Israeli soldier in Gaza holding a rainbow flag against a backdrop of bombed-out buildings. An Israeli tank can be seen behind him.

“The first ever pride flag raised in Gaza,” the foreign ministry said on the social platform X.

Critics of Israel describe these arguments as pink-washing, or the use of a country’s positive approach to LGBTQ+ issues to distract from its poor human rights record in other areas.

“Just because we can’t have a gay pride parade in your town does not mean you deserve to be starved or bombed,” said Mordechai Levovitz, the founder of Jewish Queer Youth, an organization for Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox LGBTQ+ young people in New York, and a critic of Israel’s conduct in the war.

“So much of my family still very much rejects queer people, but I would never want them to be hurt or starved or oppressed just because they don’t accept me,” said Levovitz, who grew up in a conservative religious home. “Rejecting that kind of binary” is an important part of being a member of the LGBTQ+ community, even if it is complicated, he said.

Disputes over the war have erupted elsewhere since Oct. 7.

Large crowds protested a Human Rights Campaign gala in New York in February and the GLAAD Media Awards in Los Angeles in May. They denounced the ties of both groups to pro-Israel organizations or to defense contractors that make weapons for the Israeli military. One of HRC’s donors is Northrop Grumman, a defense company; GLAAD partners with the Anti-Defamation League, a group that combats antisemitism and other bigotry and supports Israel.

In Brooklyn, the nightclub Three Dollar Bill has spent months grappling with the fallout of its decision to host, then cancel, then uncancel a party for Eurovision, the international song contest that faced criticism this year for letting Israel participate. Activists on both sides decried each move the club made, and in recent weeks, it has been hit with a wave of what its owners believe are politically motivated Pride month cancellations.

The divisions have also ensnared The Center, the prominent LGBTQ+ community hub in Greenwich Village, a neighborhood that has played a central role in gay history.

In March, The Center hosted an iftar event for Ramadan, where gay and transgender Muslims, their friends and community leaders gathered to celebrate the daily breaking of the fast.

But The Center’s own fraught history with queer Middle Easterners and Muslims loomed large. It was in the middle of conflict in 2011 after Lucas, the Fire Island filmmaker, successfully pressured it to cancel a pro-Palestinian event.

During remarks at the Ramadan event, Bashar Makhay, a co-organizer of Tarab NYC, an LGBTQ+ Middle Eastern organization, noted that The Center had apologized for the past.

But he also urged it to go further and announce support for Palestinians, “denounce pink-washing, demand a cease-fire and condemn the ongoing genocide.”

The audience cheered. When the applause died down, Makhay continued. “Liberation — including queer and trans liberation,” he said, “is not achieved through silos or silence.”

Fire Island has been a slow-moving summertime refuge for LGBTQ+ people since the 1950s and has welcome prominent vacationers like Calvin Klein, David Geffen, Jonathan Van Ness and Bowen Yang.

The conflict there arose this month after a ceremony at Trailblazers Park, a tiny pavilion on the boardwalk where flags fly honoring notable members of the LGBTQ+ community.

During the ceremony, Iman Le Caire, an Egyptian transgender activist who helped to establish the park, called for an end to the war. She told the crowd that when she said, “Free Palestine,” she meant “free our queer and transgender people” in Gaza and the West Bank.

“We stand for them,” she said. “When we say, ‘Free Palestine,’ we are not saying, ‘Free Hamas.’”

Nevertheless, a homeowner later accused Le Caire on Instagram of using her speech to support Hamas and to engage in antisemitic hate speech, setting off days of acrimonious back-and-forth.

Tensions rose further when members of ACT-UP, an activist group best known for raising the alarm about the AIDS crisis in the 1980s and 1990s, tore down the flag honoring Torres. The group replaced it with the flag honoring queer Palestinians and another to honor Cecilia Gentili, a transgender leader who died in February.

Jason Rosenberg, a member of ACT-UP New York, said group members planned their protest after they learned they would be honored alongside Torres.

“We thought Ritchie was a poor choice to be honored, especially this year, because he has been supporting Israel’s policies,” Rosenberg said.

Lucas, who quickly tore down the pro-Palestinian flag, is well known in the community for his years as an opinion writer on gay news sites. He has frequently criticized Islam and Muslims and once expressed his support for burning the Quran, which he compared to Mein Kampf. He was widely criticized last year after he tweeted a picture of an Israeli rocket with the words “From Michael Lucas, to Gaza” written on it.

Lucas posted a video on social media of himself carrying a stepladder to the park; tearing down the flag, which included ACT-UP’s traditional slogan, “Silence = Death”; and throwing it in the trash. He did not respond to a request for comment.

“We don’t need Hamas propaganda dividing us,” he wrote in the post with the video. “Otherwise this ‘open and diverse’ community will be unwelcome to Jews.”

Torres echoed Lucas on June 2, writing on X that by supporting the Palestinians, members of ACT-UP “openly align themselves with Hamas.”

Eventually, the Fire Island Pines Property Owner’s Association, which acts as a sort of de facto town government for the summer colony, took down all three flags from Trailblazers Park and said it would find a new way to honor Torres.

Its president, Henry Robin, also wrote a letter to the community praising Le Caire, Torres and ACT-UP. He reminded everyone that, whatever their differences, they were all part of the same community.

“It was not the first time, and will not be the last, that different segments of the LGBTQ+ community have been at odds with one another,” he wrote. “Advocacy, protest, and even conflict are all part of LGBTQ+ history, but even amid our disagreements we can continue to build a brighter future together.”

c.2024 The New York Times Company

The American Presidential election is perhaps the last opportunity to preserve the Republic

Mark Bergman 21 June, 2024

Left Foot Forward columnist Mark Bergman gives his latest in-depth look at the US Presidential election

Filmmaker and historian Ken Burns, speaking at Brandeis University’s graduation ceremonies last month, as reported by Jennifer Rubin (“The media and sullen nonvoters should listen to Ken Burns”), could not have been more blunt: “Do not be seduced by easy equalization. There is nothing equal about this equation. We are at an existential crossroads in our political and civic lives. This is a choice that could not be clearer.” In fact, said Burns “[t]here is no real choice this November. There is only the perpetuation, however flawed and feeble you might perceive it, of our fragile 249-year-old experiment, or the entropy that will engulf and destroy us if we take the other route.”

And there we were, marking the 80th anniversary of the D-Day invasion. While President Biden walked the sacred ground of the American Cemetery at Normandy, then Omaha Beach, and honored the sacrifice of American heroes who died on the beaches of Normandy, Donald Trump was in Phoenix accusing America of being a “failed nation” and a “very sick country,” invoking the “great replacement” conspiracy theory, praising Viktor Orban and pledging to “seal the border” and carry out the “largest domestic deportation operation” in American history. On Sunday, the President will visit Aisne-Marne American Cemetery, where 1,800 US Marines killed during World War I at Belleau Wood are buried – Trump refused to visit the cemetery during the 2018 Armistice Day commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the end of WWI because it had been raining, and defended his decision to his then chief-of-staff John Kelly (whose son also a Marine died in Afghanistan), by saying, “why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.” Trump would shortly thereafter call the 1,800 Marines “suckers” for getting killed.

On May 30, the first American president without prior government or military experience, the first president to have been impeached twice, the first president to incite a coup against his own government, the first president to be found liable for sexual abuse (and but for a quirk in New York Penal Law would have been found liable for rape), the first candidate for president to refuse to commit to a peaceful transfer of power and the first former president and candidate for president to say that political violence depends on whether or not he wins, is now the first former president and candidate for president convicted of a felony. That verdict underscored the strength of our democracy and one of its central tenets, that no one is above the law.

But no sooner was the 34th guilty verdict announced than the full weight of the Republican Party machine came crashing down on the judicial system, and with it the fundamental tenets of our democracy. The former “party of law and order” found that a verdict it did not agree with warranted threats against judges, the DoJ and the FBI, the jurors and individual prosecutors. And as Trump threatened to prosecute his enemies if he is again president (reminiscent of pre-Watergate times when presidents weaponized the FBI and IRS for partisan purposes), there was hardly any pushback from Trumpworld. In fact, in a sign of the complete surrender of Republican lawmakers to the Trump narrative, during an appearance at the Pennsylvania state House by two former Capitol Police officers who defended the Capitol on January 6th, the officers were met with jeers and walkouts by certain Republican members. Really?

And Trump has amped up his grievance narrative replete with, in the words of Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post, a “gusher of falsehoods about the trial.” As Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank summarized (“As Biden rallies the free world, Trump serves a higher cause: Himself”):Trump’s campaign website proclaimed him to be a “political prisoner” (no surprise after Trump compared his plight in February to that of a real political prisoner, Alexei Navalny).

In a Fox & Friends Weekend interview, Trump said that if he were imprisoned or put under house arrest, he is “not sure the public would stand for it. You know, at a certain point, there’s a breaking point.” This, lest we forget, from the man who repeatedly called for Hillary Clinton to be “locked up.”

At a Phoenix campaign event on Thursday, Trump warned “They’re not coming after me, they’re coming after you, and I just happen to be standing in their way.”
Trump has called Judge Juan Merchan a “crazed” “devil” who “crucified” defense witnesses. If they can do this to me, they can do this to anyone. These are bad people. There are in many cases, I believe, sick people.”

On Fox & Friends Weekend, Trump, echoing Senator Joe McCarthy 70 years ago, warned about the “enemy from within” doing more “damage to this country” than Russia or China. He is completely right, but for a very different reason.

Referring to the DoJ, he warned on Newsmax that “It’s a terrible, terrible path that they’re leading us to, and it’s very possible that it’s going to have to happen to them.” It is a terrible precedent for our country. Does that mean the next president does it to them? That’s really the question.”

In private, according to reporting by the Washington Post, Trump has told advisers and friends he wants the DoJ to investigate former allies and officials who criticized him, wants to appoint a special prosecute to investigate President Biden and his family and wants to prosecute officials at the DoJ and the FBI.

But should we be surprised, since this is the party so many of whose adherents have spent over three years seeking to discredit our election system? As Jennifer Rubin pointed out in an op-ed earlier this week (“Democrats must defend Trump’s guilty verdict against MAGA jury denial”), it was an easy jump from defaming election workers to defaming jurors. And we have seen the broader playbook before – if Trump loses an election, it is because the election was fraudulent, and so if he loses a legal case, it is because the process was corrupt and rigged. And to put this into the broader context of a presidential candidate bent on crushing democracy, as historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat reminded us, whenever authoritarians are ascendant, discrediting judges, prosecutors and the courts is to be expected, because authoritarianism thrives when the rule of law is converted into “rule by the lawless.”

So, can Trump prosecute his enemies? Adam Liptak, in his analysis (“Trump’s Vows to Prosecute Rivals Put Rule of Law on the Ballot”), quotes former counsel in the administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush David B. Rivkin Jr. in noting that, while Trump’s threats challenge long-established norms, “[a]s a constitutional matter, the president has broad law enforcement discretion to prosecute anybody. You don’t get immunized because you are the enemy of a president.”

 Liptak quotes Brennan Center President Michael Waldman who posits that for “Trump to be able to abuse power … would require prosecutors to cooperate, would require the FBI and others to shed their independence, and for juries and judges to go along.” More concerning, notes Litvak, is that Trump’s threats serve not only to provide “the red meat of prospective retribution to his base,” but also to undermine faith across society in the criminal justice system.

Unpacking the False Claims

As Trump and his enablers are likely to make the “rigged” trial and “unfair judicial system” central pillars of Trump’s campaign (at least until another target of his ire appears), I offer some thoughts on the falsehoods: “Just so you understand, this is all done by Biden and his people.” No, Trump was prosecuted by the Manhattan District Attorney, who inherited the case from his predecessor, Cyrus Vance, and there is zero evidence that the President was involved. This is classic Trump – projecting on to others the actions he would have taken in the same situation.

“When I announced I was running for president a long time later, they decided to revive this case.” No, the case predates Trump’s November 2022 announcement he would run.
“I would have loved to have testified, but [I was told by my counsel] I would say something out of whack.” This speaks for itself.

“We just went through one of many experiences where we had a conflicted judge, highly conflicted.” The New York Advisory Committee on Judicial Ethics found no conflict of interest, and the New York Appellate Division upheld Judge Merchan’s decision not to recuse himself.

“We weren’t allowed to use our election expert under any circumstances.” As Kessler notes, Judge Merchan did not bar the expert, but limited his testimony on federal campaign finance law. The defense elected not to call the expert as a witness.

“I wasn’t allowed by the judge to use, in any form, the standard RELIANCE ON COUNSEL DEFENSE (ADVICE OF COUNSEL!).” The defense decided not to serve up the advice of counsel defense because it would have required Trump to waive attorney-client privilege and Judge Merchan rejected their “presence of counsel” defense .

“The judge hates Donald Trump. Just take a look. Take a look at him. Take a look at where he comes from. He can’t stand Donald Trump. He’s doing everything in his power.”

 “Witnesses that were on our side … were literally crucified by this man who looks like an angel, but he is really a devil.” So said Trump. We have seen this before – an attack on a Latino judge. Recall Trump’s attack on Federal judge Gonzalo Curiel, who oversaw the Trump University fraud class action. These bigoted attacks are nothing short of an attempt to undermine faith in the judicial system. 

 As Adam Serwer noted (“Trump Wishes His Trial Were Rigged”), Trump was not treated unfairly, as any other defendant would have been jailed for contempt for engaging in the conduct that Trump exhibited throughout. Judge Merchan “bent over backwards to overlook his antics. Trump violated gag orders by attacking witnesses and attempting to intimidate Stormy Daniels during testimony that ‘at times seemed to be describing nonconsensual sex’ and attacked the judge’s daughter as a ‘rabid Trump-hater.’”

 Trump “received special treatment precisely because he is an important figure.” Had the case been televised, Trump and his enablers would have had a far tougher time characterizing the process as skewed against Trump.“The case against Trump was politically motivated.” As this was ultimately an election interference case, it by definition would ensnare a politician. Prosecution of any politician of a different party can seem partisan. And the fact that district attorneys are elected can often lead to characterization of cases as politically motivated if they advance the electoral fortunes of the district attorney.

 But even if the case against Trump can be said to have been politically motivated, as David A. Graham pointed out (“If Trump Is Guilty, Does It Matter If the Prosecution Was Political?”), that criticism has no “bearing on whether Trump actually committed the crimes with which he was charged.” 

Political motivation did not determine the verdict, the jury did. Graham noted:Trump was indicted by a grand jury.Trump’s counsel had the chance to challenge jurors, introduce evidence, cross-examine prosecution witnesses, and call their own witnesses, including Trump. And incidentally many legal experts questioned the strategic value of attacking the judge and the legal process, and questioned tactics that could have had only one explanation – Trump insisted on them.

Conviction required a unanimous decision by 12 citizens who had to conclude that a crime had occurred “beyond reasonable doubt.” They did so in two days.

As for the Trump apologists, Quoting David S. Bernstein, Julia Azari and Jonathan Bernstein (“Guilty, They Say”):They should answer the following: Do you think that falsifying business records to deliberately conceal a hush-money payment to influence an election, if true, should be legal? And if not, then which parts of that do you truly believe Trump did not commit? If Trump defenders are unwilling to argue he did not falsify records or that it should not be a crime, they are saying he should be exempt because he is a former president. “If they can do this to me, they can do this to anyone,” Trump said, which is exactly the point, no one is above the law.

Serwer makes a related point: the apologists do not contest that Trump committed the acts charged, but instead that Trump should be free to commit those crimes, because “anything less would be political prosecution.”

And lest we need a reminder, Republicans have unabashedly failed to hold Trump accountable when they had the chance – Trump was impeached twice for interfering in the 2020 election, once for trying to blackmail Ukraine into falsely implicating his political opponent in a crime, and once for inciting an insurrection to prevent the constitutional transfer of power.

 And as Serwer crystallizes the reality so clearly, aside from House Democrats who impeached Trump twice, Trump has only been held accountable by ordinary Americans – the jury in the E. Jean Carroll case and the 12 members of the jury in the case brought Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, as well as by Judge Engoron in the case brought by New York Attorney General Letita James (as there was no jury). The jurors “showed more courage in convicting Donald Trump, knowing that they could be hounded for doing so, than nearly the entire conservative elite has in the past decade. 

Small wonder that this same elite is so terrified of the possibility of Trump facing another jury of his peers, an American institution that has so far proved itself resistant to Trump’s corrupting influence.”The Alvin Bragg case was the weakest case. This is beside the point. The other three cases are in limbo. 

Jack Smith’s case awaits a ruling by the Supreme Court on immunity. In the meantime, the credibility of the Supreme Court has been further eroded as Justice Alito has refused to recuse himself following reporting that an inverted American flag associated with the insurrection was flown outside the Alito home days after the insurrection and later reporting that a second Appeal to Heavan flag associated with insurrectionists flew above the Alito vacation home as recently as 2023. And yesterday, it was reported that Justice Thomas had belatedly disclosed further travel paid for by a Republican donor. 

As Brennan Center President Michael Waldman has noted (“What Comes Next in the Trump Legal System”), the fact that the conviction is a matter of state law raises a number of federalism and Supreme Clause questions, highlights how damaging it is that the Supreme Court has delayed the Jack Smith case. He also notes that the “speed and calm dispatch” with which the New York state court was able to hold and complete the case highlights the disfunction in the federal system.

And Trump’s enablers, among others, had this to say:Senator Roger Marshall, a Kansas Republican, called the verdict “the most egregious miscarriage of justice in our nation’s history.” Obviously, he is not much of a student of American history.

Senator Marco Rubio: “The public spectacle of political show trials has come to America.” Rubio should know better as Cuba has had first-hand experience with authoritarianism, military tribunals and political show trials, and the total absence of due process.
House Speaker Mike Johnson referred to the “weaponization of our justice system” and the “absurd verdict.” On Fox & Friends he called for the Supreme Court to “step in” to overturn the jury verdict, notwithstanding that the appeal would have to go through two levels of appellate courts (the Appellate Court and the Court of Appeals) in New York first. Trump has limited remedies in federal courts.

As Susan Glasser reported (“The Revisionist History of the Trump Trial Has Already Begun”), when House Democrat Jim McGovern had the temerity, while lamenting the failure of the 118th Congress to accomplish anything (which as she notes is on track to be the least productive congress in recent memory), he speculated that House Republicans were trying “to distract from the fact that their candidate for President has been indicted more times than he’s been elected,” and that “the leader of their party is on trial for covering up hush-money payments to a porn star for political gain,” he was admonished by the presiding Republican and, after enumerating the various cases against Trump, his comments were struck from the official record.
Concluding Thoughts

Trump has a history of weaponizing his victimhood. We continue to face the devastating consequences of election denial, attacks on electoral systems and election workers, which continue to this day in the form of continued pressure on election administrators and election officials. The Big Lie also will underpin deepfake and other forms of disinformation intended to sow distrust in electoral systems, keep voters at home and serve as the predicate for massive legal challenges of election results. So too do we face potentially devastating consequences of sustained efforts to delegitimize judges, juries and the judicial system.

Expect this theme to dominate the Trumpworld narrative. Democratic pollster Anna Greenberg, quoted by Kessler, notes that “Trump is going to run on rigged courts and rigged elections. I don’t think he can help himself even though it would be better for him to talk about inflation. Biden is going to run on democratic norms, women’s rights – especially abortion – and the rule of law and be able to ask voters if they want a convicted felon as their president.”

There is though one more dystopian angle to this, which former Governor Chris Christie recently spelled out. Trump, who has long threatened an administration driven by revenge and retribution, will get angrier and more paranoid as we get closer to the election. Longtime Trump observer and political correspondent Maggie Haberman has made the same point – he is serious about revenge; “it’s very much a focal point for him right now.” This obviously poses an existential danger to the Republic should Trump win, but in the meantime there has been a spike in online threats that have migrated from election administration only to a broader range of targets that now include anyone associated with the prosecution of Trump, including jurors, judges and prosecutors. We are coming dangerously close to the tipping point where doxxing and threats of sexual violence and death on social media and web forums beget offline violence.

What is needed is an all-of-society response to counter the firehose of disinformation about the trial, about the impartiality of the judge, about the process, about the prosecutors, about the jury. By the way, compare and contrast the reaction across the political spectrum, starting with President Biden, to the Hunter Biden case and the verdict reached a week ago. This is the time for trusted voices in the business community, trusted voices in the legal community, trusted voices in popular culture and trusted voices in sports to set aside partisan identity to urge respect for the judicial system, for law enforcement, for elections and for democratic institutions.

While it may be easy for many to dismiss a future blighted by political sectarian divisions and violence, let alone civil war, history provides ample warnings. Yes, the 2024 ballot will present us all with a choice, but, no, we do not have a real choice as to what that future of America should look like. As between democracy and authoritarianism, the answer should be clear. We all need to convey that message and we must not shy away from characterizing this election from what it is – perhaps the last opportunity to preserve the Republic.

Mark Bergman seeks to capitalize on a series of networks he has developed while based in London for two decades and more recently in Washington, D.C. He convenes and connects constituencies and has established himself as a thought leader on political, geopolitical and regulatory developments and trends, with a particular emphasis on the resilience of democracy; extremism/disinformation/weaponization of hate; transnational repression and kleptocracy; and climate change. His written analyses – as part of his briefing notes series — are available on his website: 7Pillars Global Insights.

 Opinion

‘No false choices’: Why we don’t decide between faith and LGBTQ+ rights

Vice President Harris named a truth I know through both my work and my living.

Marchers carry a large rainbow flag during the annual Pride parade in Portland, Maine. (Photo by Mercedes Mehling/Unsplash/Creative Commons)

June 20, 2024

By Frederick A. Davie

(RNS) — In my brief conversation with Vice President Kamala Harris at a Pride event she and second gentleman Douglas Emhoff hosted at their Washington residence last week, I told her that a significant percentage of students I serve at Union Theological Seminary, if not a majority, are LGBTQ+. The vice president seemed genuinely surprised and pleased. After a moment’s pensive consideration, she responded, “It just proves there are no false choices.” 

Her words have continued to reverberate in the days since the event. They name a truth I know through both my work and my living: We don’t have to choose between faith, spirituality or religion and a fully embodied sexuality.

For too long, cultural consensus has held LGBTQ+ identity and religious belonging to be mutually exclusive. It’s not infrequent to see newspaper headlines proclaiming “conflict between LGBTQ+ rights and faith voters” — as if many LGBTQ+ people do not love God and millions of cis-heterosexual religious people don’t believe their spiritual tradition calls them to embrace their LGBTQ+ neighbors. 

Indeed, when policymakers, faith leaders and activists attempt to force a choice between “religion” and “LGBTQ+ rights,” it is actually a choice between abusive religion and healthy sexuality. For far too long, hateful voices have contorted and twisted religious texts to demonize LGBTQ+ people. They’ve weaponized religion to pursue their own far-right agenda.

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RELATED: Fuller seminary senior director fired for refusal to sign non-LGBTQ affirming statement

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In sum, the widely held dichotomy between faith and sexuality is not the product of innate and irresolvable tension; it’s the consequence of hatred masquerading as faith. 

What I also deeply appreciate about the vice president’s remark is how, in just a few words, she creates space for the breadth and depth of religious and spiritual expression and practice in the United States. Religious pluralism is one of our greatest defenses against the ascendant Christian nationalism that presently drives far-right forces. Interreligious coalitions can uproot the myth that the U.S. was founded as a Christian nation. 

In my own city of New York, I watch Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist and Hindu communities — and so many others — work beside atheist and agnostic neighbors to advocate for policies that promote universal thriving. 

Sadly, that kind of collaboration rarely makes headlines, while Christian nationalists are often given airtime and column inches to speak as though they alone define “religious concerns.” 

The millions of faithful Americans who believe God calls us to mutual respect must get louder about the religious values that motivate our interdependence. We cannot let the most bigoted and negative perspectives define faith in the public square.

Ultimately, what I also hear in Harris’ simple sentence is the grace that has defined my own life; my own marriage to my husband, Michael; and the beautiful lives of so many LGBTQ+ people I know. Healthy sexuality and sexual expression and identity coupled with healthy spirituality is a well of love and compassion that flows in abundance from our living. 

I watch LGBTQ+ students at Union Seminary, LGBTQ+ clergy who faithfully serve their communities and LGBTQ+ people filling pews in congregations throughout the country and I see God’s radiance reflected back at me. It’s the embodiment of the truth I read in the Bible, “We are fearfully and wonderfully made.”

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RELATED: After vote to repeal LGBTQ bans, many gay Methodists are now fully out

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What’s doubly beautiful is that all of these people are living and transforming religious communities despite the long history of theologies telling us we have no place. We heard voices telling us, “You are not welcome,” and proclaimed our own belonging and belovedness because we heard God’s voice tell us clearly that we are. That kind of radical love transforms communities. It’s the reason more and more faiths are changing their policies to bless same-sex marriages and ordain LGTBQ+ people.

The Rev. Frederick Davie. (Courtesy photo)

When you see this beauty firsthand, it exposes homo- and transphobic lies. “There are no false choices” — just a love that can heal what bigotry has broken. It’s love that can heal a fractured nation, too.

(The Rev. Frederick Davie, formerly the executive vice president of Union Theological Seminary, is senior strategic adviser to the president at the school. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)

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Satirical LGBTQ Pride flag story spreads out of context online

Published on June 20, 2024 
By Dima AMRO, AFP USA


Copyright © AFP 2017-2024. Any commercial use of this content requires a subscription. Click here to find out more.
Threads posts with thousands of interactions claim a man in the US state of Iowa mistakenly burned his house down while attempting to ignite an LGBTQ Pride flag. This is false; the claim stems from a comedy account on X and was reshared without satire disclaimers.

"Breaking: A MAGA fan in Iowa accidentally burned down his house today trying to burn a gay pride flag," says text in a screenshot of an X post shared June 11, 2024 on Threads with the caption: "Happy Pride Month."

Another Threads post shared the same screenshot with the caption: "Stupid, homophobic and homeless is no way to go through life."
Image

Screenshot of a Threads post taken June 18, 2024
Image

Screenshot of a Threads post taken June 18, 2024

Similar posts have circulated on Instagram, garnering tens of thousands of interactions.

The posts come in the middle of Pride Month, during which US agencies warn the LGBTQ community faces an increased risk of attacks.

Comments on the posts -- including users writing "karma" -- suggest some people believe the claims are true. Others use the posts to criticize supporters of "MAGA," a reference to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's slogan "Make America Great Again."

However, the story about a flag burning gone wrong is unfounded.

The X post in the screenshot was originally published June 11 by The Halfway Post, which says it shares comedy and satire (archived here).

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Screenshot of an X account taken June 18, 2024

Keyword searches for recent house fires in Iowa found articles debunking the post, but no official reports from local media or emergency responders.

More of AFP's reporting on misinformation about the LGBTQ community is available here.

 

Arakan Army treatment of Rohingya minority poses challenge to Myanmar opposition

The Rakhine force, the most effective rebel army fighting the junta, vents its grievances on the battlefield.

A commentary by Zachary Abuza
2024.06.08

 Illustration by Amanda Weisbrod/RFA; Images by Adobe Stock

Evidence of Arakan Army culpability in mass arson attacks on Rohingya homes in western Myanmar's Buthidaung township – where satellite imagery has confirmed that more than 400 homes were burnt to the ground – poses a serious challenge to the anti-junta opposition.

While such attacks have ceased since the Arakan Army captured the majority Rohingya town, the rebels' double-speak both weakens the prospects of an inclusive federal democracy, and is very shortsighted for the ethnic army’s leadership.

As it is said, the truth is the first casualty in war, and so far here’s what we know happened: On May 18, the Arakan Army captured the last remaining four light infantry battalions and two border guard police camps in Buthidaung, following a multi-month siege. Immediately, over 400 homes in Rohingya residential neighborhoods were set ablaze.

There is a chance of course that some of the fires were set by the retreating junta military, who had waged a genocidal campaign against the Rohingya in 2017-18. The military seems determined to stoke inter-communal tensions as it retreats from northern Rakhine state, and “false flag” operations are part of the military’s modus operandi.

In a bizarre irony, the army has been conscripting Rohingya men into its depleted ranks to fight the Arakan Army, while at the same time, relying on radical groups, such as the Rohingya Solidarity Organization (RSO) and the Arakan Rohingya Solidarity Army (ARSA), operating in the refugee camps in Bangladesh to recruit fighters.

Despite the military’s own culpability in ethnic cleansing, they are trying to paint themselves as defenders of the Rohingya community, as the Arakan Army settles old scores. If the Arakan Army continues such attacks, they are making an alliance between the military and radical Rohingya groups including ARSA and the RSO, inevitable.

Flames from burning homes in Buthidaung in Rakhine state, are seen above the treetops in this image provided by a Rohingya refugee, May 17, 2024. (Image from video via AP)

While this is not surprising, it is exceptionally short-sighted in its thinking and undermines the effort to defeat Myanmar’s military and establish a federal democracy. 

This should not come as a surprise. The Arakan Army’s position on the Rohingya has been two faced. Its leader, Tun Mrat Naing, has a decade-long track record of referring to them as “Bengalis”, parroting the Myanmar military’s own term for the Rohingya. 

The arson attacks have also increased tensions between the Arakan Army leadership and the National Unity Government (NUG).

Following the military coup in February 2021, the Arakan Army made a very important, if not surprising, statement in support of the NUG position that the Rohingya were a persecuted minority who were entitled to full citizenship, and that the one million refugees in Bangladesh should be repatriated.

More intransigent after military gains

But with military gains since the Three Brotherhood Alliance launched its offensive on October 27, 2023, the Arakan Army has become far more intransigent. Its leadership has signaled this change to their constituents, whether in social media or simply by greenlighting attacks by local units.

The Arakan Army’s military gains are significant. They now claim to have seized 180 military camps and taken full control of eight of Rakhine’s 17 townships. While they have not moved on the state capital of Sittwe or the Chinese special economic zone in Kyaukphyu, they are controlling the roads in and out of them. 

Should the Arakan Army complete their capture of Maungdaw, they will have driven the military out of the entire northern region of Rakhine.

While the ethnic Rakhine army has stated their intention to liberate the entire state, for now they are trying to control the three main entry points into the northern part of the state in order to consolidate their power. 

The military has scant deployments in southern Rakhine, meaning that the Arakan Army’s takeover of the entire state is not unthinkable. 

Arakan Army troops pose in Buthidaung, Myanmar, in an image posted to 

social media May 18, 2024. (AA Info Desk via VKontakte)

The Arakan Army has proven itself to be amongst the most effective fighting forces among the ethnic armed organizations. Their battlefield advances have spread the military thin and not allowed the junta to redeploy troops to Kachin, Kayah or northern Shan states, where regime forces have suffered serious setbacks. 

Likewise, in eastern Myanmar, though opposition forces had to give up the border town of Myawaddy, the military has not been able to regain full control of the key Asia Highway.

In short, military success has given the Arakan Army the opportunity to advance their short-term and parochial political interests at the expense of the national agenda to defeat the military.

The Arakan Army’s stated commitments to the anti junta opposition’s long-term political goals, as stated by the NUG, should always be taken with a grain of salt. 

They are the only ethnic army that has flirted with independence, and their authoritarian leanings show they are hostile to democracy and any political system that would force them to share power. 

Prejudice with huge implications

The United League of Arakan, the AA’s political arm, issued a statement on May 20 that denied any culpability for the Rohingya village torchings, apportioning the blame solely on the military. Its statements since then have been largely dismissive and continue to deny the attacks, while criticizing media reporting on civilian casualties.

But evidence of their culpability is mounting, underscoring the reality that the Arakan Army does not like the Rohingya population, nor does it want to see large-scale resettlement from Bangladesh. The Arakan Army’s politics capitalize on Rakhine Buddhist prejudice against the Muslim community.

The Arakan Army leadership is under intense pressure to renounce any violence towards the Rohingya. But the reality is that many of their troops were involved in the communal violence against them. This is simply a return to their default setting.

The Arakan Army’s position has larger implications. 

While they might have moved on from the 2017 ethnic cleansing, the international community, including the United States, has not. Earmarked in the recent $121 million in U.S. support for Myanmar, are still funds to support the quest for accountability for abuses against Rohingya.

The continued persecution of the Rohingya will undermine future international aid and support for Myanmar’s opposition in general, and cyclone-ravaged Rakhine in particular.

What is so frustrating is that Arakan Army chief Tun Mrat Naing is arguably the most charismatic and competent of the ethnic army leaders in Myanmar. 

Major General Tun Myat Naing, right, commander-in-chief of the Arakan Army, attends a dinner commemorating peace-building efforts, in Pangkham in Myanmar's eastern Shan state, April 16, 2019. (RFA)

Were he to better coordinate his efforts with the NUG and wholeheartedly endorse their political aims, he would be a commanding figure in a post-conflict Myanmar. 

His parochialism augers poorly for a post-conflict Myanmar and puts the NUG in a very awkward position.

The NUG’s statement in response to the mid-May arson attacks was exceedingly diplomatic, never referencing the Arakan Army and largely pinning the blame on the junta military for stoking communal violence. 

But behind the scenes the frustration is clearly mounting.

With such heavy strategic implications to this sectarianism, the Arakan Army has to get its priorities straight and prove themselves as responsible stakeholders.

Zachary Abuza is a professor at the National War College in Washington and an adjunct at Georgetown University. The views expressed here are his own and do not reflect the position of the U.S. Department of Defense, the National War College, Georgetown University or Radio Free Asia.