Tel Aviv protest: Stop anti-gay incitement
Protestors decry statements by politicians, urge 'stinking homophobes to get out of our lives'
Homophobia, incitement, and hurtful statements by Knesset members were the focus of a "Small Gay Pride Parade" held Saturday night in Tel Aviv.
Some 300 demonstrators marched from Habima Square toward the Barnoar club, where three years ago Lizzie Trubeshi and Nir Katz were shot to death – in protest of recent anti-gay and lesbian remarks.
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The demonstrators waved gay pride flags and spoke out against Yisrael Beiteinu MK Anastassia Michaeli, who recently made headlines with her assertions that "homosexuals are pitiful and kill themselves at 40" and that "lesbians are women who've had abortions."
In addition, marchers bore signs reading: "I'm a proud lesbian; I didn't have an abortion"; "Stinking homophobes, get out of our lives"; "Anastassia Michaeli – I don't like homophobia" and "Gays don't have horns."
Protesters call out homophobic MKs (Photo: Moti Kimchi)
Yair Hochner, 37, who directs the gay and lesbian film festival, told Ynet that "we oppose all the incitement by right-wing MKs. The only thing that's strange here is Anastassia Michaeli and her friends."
B, an officer in the IDF reserves, who marched in uniform and waved a rainbow flag, added that "it would be better for Anastassia to work for unification and love among different sectors of the population and stop looking for Arabs or gays to hate."
Ayala Katz: You can't invalidate a person (Photo: Moti Kimchi)
Another marcher, Shiri (23), said that "Michaeli's remarks were hurtful and make you feel that if you don't live in a normative family, you don't have the right to exist. I really hope that most of the public doesn't think like her, but sometimes we encounter this mindset. She doesn't deserve to be an MK."
MK Nitzan Horowitz (Meretz), who spoke at the event, said that "the murdered and the wounded at Barnoar were shot because they were gays and lesbians. They came here to find shelter from the hate that surrounded them. We don't know who the killer was, but we know who is constantly spreading hate and who is undermining our attempts to create a more tolerant society."
Horowitz refused to describe his Knesset cohort Michaeli as "delusional and an aberration."
"They aren't delusional, they are calculating, they flourish in the soil of hate and racism, and anyone who does this has to know that it ends in blood. In the blood of those who are beaten all week long. The prime minister shows off (Israel's gay and lesbian) community to the entire world, but here allows incitement against them."
Tel Aviv City Council member Yaniv Weizman stressed that the participants were there "to say 'enough, the writing is on the wall.' MK Michaeli and MK Ariel and Bibi and Barak and Lieberman, whom we haven't heard from, are the writing on the wall."
Nir Katz' mother, Ayala, also took part in the demonstration, saying that "every person has the right to live his life as he wants, in safety. Freedom of expression isn't freedom to vilify. You might not agree and you might be repulsed, but you don't have legitimacy to invalidate someone."
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