Within the upscale homosexual resort city of Hearth Island Pines, colourful flags honor L.G.B.T.Q. historical past makers just like the actress Wanda Sykes and the drag queen RuPaul in a small park close to the harbor. For a number of hours this month, one flag additionally honored Consultant Ritchie Torres, the primary brazenly homosexual Afro-Latino member of Congress.
However Mr. Torres can also be an outspoken supporter of Israel, and never lengthy after his flag went up, it was torn down by the homosexual activist group ACT-UP, which was additionally honored on the park, and changed with two flags, one in all which honored queer Palestinians.
Inside hours, the flag for queer Palestinians was additionally torn down by Michael Lucas, a pornographic performer and filmmaker with a historical past of anti-Muslim statements.
The dispute on Hearth Island, simply off Lengthy Island, was only one expression of the tensions over the Gaza conflict which have wracked American public life. However inside New York’s L.G.B.T.Q. group, whose members hail from each ethnic and social background and are usually extremely attuned to problems with social justice, the conflict has touched off some particularly uncooked conflicts.
These divisions have been on full show throughout Pleasure Month, a time sometimes targeted on celebration and solidarity.
The struggle over how the group ought to reply to the conflict in Gaza has performed out in fiery on-line feedback and false accusations of pro-Hamas exercise. On Hearth Island, the flag battle has pitted Mr. Torres and native householders, together with Mr. Lucas, towards the very activists honored on the park. Elsewhere in New York, related, if decrease profile, disputes have shaken homosexual bars, L.G.B.T.Q. fund-raising dinners and Pleasure festivities.
“I feel queer persons are totally on one aspect of the talk,” mentioned Afeef Nessouli, a journalist and activist who has been highlighting the tales of L.G.B.T.Q. individuals in Gaza on his widespread social media channels because the conflict started. “It appears like queer persons are popping out for Palestine in a extremely massive approach.”
Certainly, members of the L.G.B.T.Q. group overwhelmingly self-identify as politically liberal or reasonable, based on polls. A majority of Democrats have disapproved of Israel’s actions since no less than final November, one month after the conflict started, based on Gallup surveys.
The conflict in Gaza started on Oct. 7 after a Hamas-led assault on Israel killed roughly 1,200 individuals and resulted in 250 extra taken to Gaza as hostages, based on Israeli officers. Since then, greater than 36,000 individuals have been killed in Gaza, well being officers within the territory mentioned. Virtually two million individuals have been displaced from their houses in Gaza, and the area’s civilian infrastructure has been destroyed.
Final month, the highest prosecutor of the Worldwide Prison Court docket mentioned he was looking for arrest warrants for the leaders of each Israel and Hamas on expenses of crimes towards humanity.
However supporters of Israel, together with some vocal L.G.B.T.Q. individuals, typically argue that the group ought to assist the nation as a result of, whereas it lags behind Western nations on some homosexual rights points, it’s extra tolerant than different locations within the Center East.
In Gaza, like in lots of locations within the Arab world, homosexuality stays taboo and homosexual life occurs largely behind closed doorways. Authorities persecution will not be unusual, and in a single high-profile case Hamas killed a distinguished commander after accusing him of embezzlement and homosexuality.
“Did it ever happen to them that Hamas is a barbaric oppressor of Queer Palestinians?” Mr. Torres, who represents the Bronx, mentioned in an announcement after the Hearth Island controversy, in reference to the activists who eliminated his flag. “A Queer Palestinian is way freer and safer in Israel than in a Gaza Strip dominated by Hamas.”
Professional-Israel social media accounts, together with one run by the Israeli overseas ministry, have made related arguments. One put up that was shared by the Israeli authorities in November reveals a smiling Israeli soldier in Gaza holding a rainbow flag towards a backdrop of bombed out buildings. An Israeli tank could be seen behind him.
“The primary ever delight flag raised in Gaza,” the overseas ministry mentioned on X.
Critics of Israel describe these arguments as pink-washing, or using a rustic’s constructive method to L.G.B.T.Q. points to distract from its poor human rights report in different areas.
“Simply because we are able to’t have a homosexual delight parade in your city doesn’t imply you need to be starved or bombed,” mentioned Mordechai Levovitz, the founding father of Jewish Queer Youth, a corporation for Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox L.G.B.T.Q. younger individuals in New York, and a critic of Israel’s conduct within the conflict.
“A lot of my household nonetheless very a lot rejects queer individuals, however I’d by no means need them to be harm or starved or oppressed simply because they don’t settle for me,” mentioned Mr. Levovitz, who grew up in an Orthodox house. “Rejecting that type of binary” is a crucial a part of being a member of the L.G.B.T.Q. group, even whether it is sophisticated, he mentioned.
In Brooklyn, the nightclub Three Greenback Invoice has spent months grappling with the fallout of its determination to host, then cancel, then un-cancel a celebration for Eurovision, the worldwide music contest that confronted criticism this yr for letting Israel take part. Activists on each side decried every transfer the membership made, and in current weeks it has been hit with a wave of what its house owners consider are politically-motivated Pleasure month cancellations.
The divisions have additionally ensnared The Heart, the distinguished L.G.B.T.Q. group hub in Greenwich Village, a neighborhood that has performed a central function in homosexual historical past.
In March, The Heart hosted an iftar occasion for Ramadan, the place homosexual and transgender Muslims, their buddies and group leaders gathered to rejoice the each day breaking of the quick.
However The Heart’s personal fraught historical past with queer Center Easterners and Muslims loomed massive. It was in the course of battle in 2011 after Mr. Lucas, the Hearth Island filmmaker, efficiently pressured it to cancel a pro-Palestinian occasion.
Throughout remarks on the Ramadan occasion, Bashar Makhay, a co-organizer of Tarab NYC, an L.G.B.T.Q. Center Jap group, famous that The Heart had apologized for the previous.
However he additionally urged it to go additional and announce assist for Palestinians, “denounce pink-washing, demand a cease-fire and condemn the continued genocide.”
The viewers cheered. When the applause died down, Mr. Makhay continued. “Liberation — together with queer and trans liberation,” he mentioned, “will not be achieved by way of silos or silence.”
Hearth Island has been a slow-moving summertime refuge for L.G.B.T.Q. individuals because the Nineteen Fifties, and has welcome distinguished vacationers like Calvin Klein, David Geffen, Jonathan Van Ness and Bowen Yang.
The battle there arose this month after a ceremony at Trailblazers Park, a tiny pavilion on the boardwalk the place flags fly honoring notable members of the L.G.B.T.Q. group.
Through the ceremony, Iman Le Caire, an Egyptian transgender activist who helped to ascertain the park, referred to as for an finish to the conflict. She advised the gang that when she mentioned ‘Free Palestine’ she meant “free our queer and transgender individuals” in Gaza and the West Financial institution.
“We stand for them,” she mentioned. “After we say ‘Free Palestine,’ we aren’t saying ‘Free Hamas.’”
Nonetheless, a home-owner later accused Ms. Le Caire on Instagram of utilizing her speech to assist Hamas and to have interaction in antisemitic hate speech, setting off days of acrimonious back-and-forth.
Tensions rose additional when members of ACT-UP, an activist group greatest identified for elevating the alarm in regards to the AIDS disaster within the Nineteen Eighties and Nineties, tore down the flag honoring Mr. Torres. The group changed it with the flag honoring queer Palestinians and one other to honor Cecilia Gentili, a transgender chief who died in February.
Jason Rosenberg, a member of ACT-UP New York, mentioned group members deliberate their protest after they discovered they’d be honored alongside Mr. Torres.
“We thought Ritchie was a poor option to be honored, particularly this yr, as a result of he has been supporting Israel’s insurance policies,” Mr. Rosenberg mentioned.
Mr. Lucas, who shortly tore down the pro-Palestinian flag, is well-known locally for his years as an opinion author on homosexual information websites. He has ceaselessly criticized Islam and Muslims and as soon as expressed his assist for burning the Quran, which he in comparison with Mein Kampf. He was broadly criticized final yr after he tweeted an image of an Israeli rocket with the phrases “From Michael Lucas, to Gaza” written on it.
Mr. Lucas posted a video on social media of himself carrying a step ladder to the park, tearing down the flag, which included ACT-UP’s conventional slogan, “Silence = Dying,” and throwing it within the trash.
“We don’t want Hamas propaganda dividing us,” he wrote within the put up with the video. “In any other case this ‘open and numerous’ group will probably be unwelcome to Jews.”
Mr. Torres echoed Mr. Lucas on June 2, writing on X that by supporting the Palestinians, members of ACT-UP “brazenly align themselves with Hamas.”
Mr. Lucas mentioned in an announcement on Saturday that he tore down the flag as a result of he thought the activists had been motivated by “traditional, textbook, antisemitism.”
He questioned why ACT-UP didn’t protest the remedy of homosexual individuals in Arab nations “however they rant a few conflict began by Hamas they know nothing about. Just because it includes Jews.”
Ultimately, the Hearth Island Pines Property Proprietor’s Affiliation, which acts as a kind of de facto city authorities for the summer season colony, took down all three flags from Trailblazers Park and mentioned it will discover a new strategy to honor Mr. Torres.
Its president, Henry Robin, additionally wrote a letter to the group praising Ms. Le Caire, Mr. Torres and ACT-UP. He reminded everybody that, no matter their variations, they had been all a part of the identical group.
“It was not the primary time, and won’t be the final, that totally different segments of the L.G.B.T.Q.+ group have been at odds with each other,” he wrote. “Advocacy, protest, and even battle are all a part of L.G.B.T.Q.+ historical past, however even amid our disagreements we are able to proceed to construct a brighter future collectively.”
