A radical anti-Israel hate group that goes by the name Queers Against Israeli Apartheid, along with the leadership of Toronto's Pride Festival, have been quietly lobbying Toronto's city councilors to secure funding if that hate group participates in the annual event. According to Martin Gladstone, the Gay activist lawyer who has been countering the fanatical organization that seeks to delegitimize the Jewish state, the anti-Israel group has enough votes lined up at present to win the vote.
The group was the source of enormous controversy last year when it threatened to participate and then later and withdrew from the Pride Festival, ostensibly to ensure the event didn't lose funding. The real reason for their withdrawal was more likely that the loss of funding from the city and corporate sponsors that their involvement would have spurred would make them pariahs in the Gay community to a greater extent than they are currently.
The year before, amid threats from the to withhold funding from Pride, the festival's organizers first promised that that anti-Israel group would not be allowed to [participate, then once they secured City funding scammed the City by reversing that decision to the outrage of many on City Council including the current mayor, Rob Ford.
Councilor James Pasternak had proposed a resolution last year that was adopted by Council that required Toronto's anti-discrimination policy to be revised,in order to address funding to events that include hate groups. By lying about the nature of the Jewish state, seeking its destruction by falsely labeling it a nation that practices crimes against humanity, singling it out and holding the only country in the middle east that respects Gay rights to a standard they hold no other country in the world, the so-called Queers Against Israeli Apartheid is an anti-Semitic hate group. Yet Councilors such as Kristin Wong-Tam, who is the original owner of that group's website, along with City Councilors Gord Perks and others on the left wing of Council support the participation of the anti-Semitic group in Pride.
Pride and the anti-Semitic group have been effectively lobbying councilors such as the pliable Mary-Margaret McMahon with the deceptive and ironic claim that Pride is being held to a higher standard than any other city-sponsored event. As there is no other city-sponsored event that gives a platform to a hate group whose sole purpose is to vilify and demonize an entire nation and community, Pride's argument is clearly disingenuous.
Toronto City Council will vote on funding for the Pride Festival on Wednesday, June 6. Councillor Pasternak has proposed that funding from the city be withheld until after the event and submitted to Pride only on the condition that Queers Against Israeli Apartheid is not a participant. Torontonians concerned about their tax dollars being used to subsidize the hateful anti-Semitism and anti-western fanaticism of Queers Against Israeli Apartheid should contact their councillors and hopefully sway them to act responsibly.
(A form that can be used to contact city council is available through Martin Gladstone's website, Reclaiming Our Pride)
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