Why Pride?

This is a really peculiar phenomenon, a study in social behaviour that is truly difficult to parse and to make intelligent sense of. But it most certainly is a reality. One that has been demonstrated time and again. Jews tend to empathize, have a natural sympathy for any group within society that is perceived to be among the downtrodden. That may have a great deal to do with Jews' historical difficulties in being accepted throughout the diaspora in whichever country they have settled.

They know what it feels like to be dispossessed, to be scorned and maltreated.

That knowledge gives greater impetus to the natural human impulse to be compassionate and caring toward others. What they have suffered through the millennia, they wish no other group to struggle with. And Jews have always for a myriad of reasons been in the forefront of social events leading to the kind of change that would bring in forward-looking and socially-valuable alterations in the social compact, changes that would result in equality.

During the French Revolution Jews were among those who brought about change, and who benefited from it. In South Africa, during Apartheid, Jews were influential in doing what they could to effect the downfall of that socially corrosive, divisive situation. During the American civil rights movement, Jews were often there, right in front, marching with the leaders of the black movement. Jews have also represented the need for fair and just treatment of aboriginals.

During the Russian Revolution that led to the downfall of the Czar and the royal family, and the triumph of Communism, leading to the USSR having domination over its neighbours in a great big unhappy family of communal rule in the name of equality, Jews were also in the forefront. In the liberalization of society finally accepting the inevitable, that homosexuals were not sub-natural but yet another expression of human sexuality, Jews were present as agitators for change.

In each and every one of those instances, brotherhood and sisterhood and freedom and liberation and joyfulness suffused those who were involved, and there was total acceptance and gratitude for the efforts of all involved, and Jewish inclusiveness and respect was guaranteed. In each and every one of those instances, after a period of time, a nasty, grumpy return to another kind of normalcy occurred, where Jews once again became a symbol of the 'other', and bigoted reactions to their presence resulted.

Queers Against Israeli Apartheid is yet another one of those manifestations of a group having enjoyed liberation through their own efforts at normalizing acceptance in society, and where Jews have had a hand, and where the movement itself seems to require a mission to seek out what they consider to be offensive entities whom they can in their turn spurn, scorn and relegate to a position of scurrilous demonization. In the case of Toronto queers, Israel has surfaced as their mission.

Attributing to Israel the kind of apartheid that was forced by an unaccepting society upon them, even while they cannot be ignorant of the fact that those whom they champion, whose religion they accept as just and fair targets those of their like in Muslim countries for death, under Shariah law. But it is Israel that is the villain of the piece, the Jewish State which accepts and protects the freedoms of gays. Israel has the misfortune to be a Jewish country and that alone is what propels those who express their hatred of it.

Toronto's Gay Pride parade has its counterpart celebration in Tel Aviv. There is no event even glancingly approximating such an event in any Muslim country. In most Arab Muslim countries and in Aryan Muslim Persia, the death penalty is called for; imprisonment and torture at the very least. Homosexuality is seen as an offence against Islam. Judaism accepts the justice of treating all people with grace and respect. None of which means all Jews are perfectly well behaved and subscribe to generously sensitive acceptance of others. But the preponderance do.

There are no perfect societies. There cannot be any in existence for the simple fact that human beings are not, have never been and never will be perfect. People will always chafe at the sight and the sound and the thought of others very much unlike themselves. But most reasonable people, once they have thoughtfully weighed the differences against the shared likenesses that we all share, accept equality for it brings us closer to the angels than the demons within us.

And then there are those who must hate, who must find an object of social derision, even if they were themselves once subjected to that miserable state of social rejection. And it really is a pity that Toronto's gay community has allowed itself to be manipulated, their code of humanity violated, their attention turned to vilifying and slandering people just like themselves, believing because they want to, that they are righteously justified in doing that.

This signal human failing renders them utterly despicable. There is no excuse, none whatever, for a 'social justice' or 'activist' group to spout hateful invective against others, nor to foment an aura of false accusation, nor to elevate themselves as caring because they support the 'cause' of the Palestinians through a garishly-sordid public relations display meant to dehumanize and degrade Jews. The Middle East conflict is a long, complex one, whose details obviously deliberately escape these social-justice 'activists'.

It is simpler to just protest, to take sides and find the aggressor. During which process they lose the patience and respect of those who helped them free themselves from the chains of social misunderstanding. Their behaviour is worthy of sociopaths passing themselves off as socially-conscious, enlightened souls. They would be further enlightened should they offer to travel to Iran or Pakistan, or Afghanistan, or Egypt, or Saudi Arabia, to inform and educate the population there of the social niceties, to respect gays.

From the dank, dark prisons in those countries they can smuggle out postcards to friends and supporters, telling them how preferable it is to live in those countries than in a horrible, human-rights-abusing country like Israel where Muslim gays live openly among the Jewish gays.