Homophobia and Global Justice

On Saturday, November 4, several of us from LAGAI and a number of other lesbians and gay men attended a demonstration in support of the Palestinian people at Justin Hermann Plaza in San Francisco. This action had been initiated by American Muslims for Global Peace and Justice (called Global Justice for short), a South Bay group, but was called a "mass rally" and endorsed by many secular organizations, including LAGAI. We brought our banner, a timeless relic of the Gulf War reading, "U.S. Out of Iraq, Israel Out of Occupied Palestine/Lesbians and Gays Against Intervention" (we said it was an old banner).

While we were standing in the plaza, several people came up to us and thanked us for our solidarity. After about an hour, just before the march was to leave, one of the organizers came up to Daniel (the only man in our group) and asked him if we would take our banner down because some of the Islamic clergy and lay leadership objected to our presence as open lesbians and gay men. We said that we would leave if they asked us to, but that we would not march or participate in the demonstration without our banner. While the organizers considered what to do, we remained standing with our banner and the men who objected to our presence came to argue with us and tell us that we were anti-Islamic and thus anti-Palestinian, and that "lesbians and gays are not part of the movement for global justice," (Deeg informed them that we certainly are and have been for a long time). Kate mentioned that not all Palestinians are Islamic, but they not surprisingly ignored her. One man and his son tried to rip the banner, but the other men told them not to.

While all this was going on, many of the Muslim people present came up to us, asked what was happening and shook their heads, saying, "This is not right," or "Ignore them and march anyway." We made it clear that we would respect the decision of the organizers, and after about 20 minutes of tense discussion, they asked us to take our banner down. The march left, and most of the straight secular leftists went with it, some groups saying that they would take down their banners in protest but wanted to participate in the march and rally. Some straight leftists remained behind in the plaza with us. A gay man spoke at the rally without identifying himself as gay, but did make a plea for "inclusion."

The following week, there was another coalition demonstration, called mainly by student groups, as part of the International Day of Silence for the children of Iraq. The local group had added the children of Palestine. So we took our slightly more ragged banner and went down to UN Plaza. Members of AMGPJ again asked us to take down our banner, saying that we had taken it down last week, and we should show the same respect this week. Deeg said that we had not been asked by this coalition to take down our banner. They went to the coalition leaders who this time did not back them up. They came back and harassed us for a while, among other things telling us that we might support the Palestinians, but the Palestinians would kill us for being faggots, and that he supported the killing of gay people. We’re not sure how he saw that as helping to build a movement in solidarity with the Palestinians.

On the other hand, Father Habib, a Palestinian catholic priest thanked us each, individually, for coming. The rally was opened by a woman who spoke generally about inclusion as a good thing. It was a tense four hours, particularly when we returned from the silent procession to find that one of the AMCPJ men had made a sign which said "Islam Condemns Homosexuality." When we repositioned ourselves in the plaza, he stood next to us. After the AMCPJ person spoke (and no, there wasn’t an openly gay speaker), he came over to offer us another compromise -- the guy would take down his sign, if we would take down our banner. So even though we had intended to leave, we had to stand there for another 1/2 hour until the rally finally ended.

LAGAI is no stranger to dealing with homophobia in progressive movements, and in fact we have always considered it part of our work. I was personally more disheartened to find that the IAC member, who we have worked with on other issues in the gay community, was not willing to take some of the heat. We, and others including Gays for Nicaragua and the Victoria Mercado Brigade, learned in our central america work, that our willingness to take on homophobia in the movement here, helped queers in Nicaragua and El Salvador to build their own movements. In turn, the Bay Area movement was educated and grew from our contacts with the queers in those countries.

We encourage other queers to remain, or get involved in, the Palestine solidarity movement, either with LAGAI or with any other organization you want. It is important that we maintain a visible and proud presence, and it is important that we make it clear that both the struggle against homophobia and the struggle against zionism are struggles for human rights.

According to the e-mail, the organizations which sponsored the November 4 rally were: ADC-SF Chapter, AFL-CIO, Al-AWDA, Al-Qalam Institute, American Muslims for Jerusalem, Arab Congress, Bay Area Massajed, Council on American-Islamic Relations, International Action Center, Labor Council on Latin America, MSA WEST, MSU Berkeley, Palestine Arab Fund, Palestinian American Congress, People for Justice and Peace in Palestine, SF State GUPS, American Muslims for Global Peace and Justice, UCB-Arab Student Union, and the Western Regional Representative of Irish American Unity Conference.

This article was reprinted from UltraViolet, the newsletter of LAGAI (Lesbian and GAy Insurrection). It was written in December of 2000. To receive future issues of UltraViolet free in the mail, or to get involved in LAGAI, call (510) 434-1304 or e-mail lagai@bigfoot.com. Or you can check out our website: www.lagai.org.