Supporting Israel -- It's the Gay Thing to Do

I've been talking to myself about Israel for quite some time. As a second generation Jew whose father fought in WWII and who lost family members to Czarist pogroms and the Holocaust, I firmly believe Israel has a right to exist.

As a progressive, I've always hoped for a peaceful settlement forged by diplomacy between Israel and the Palestinians. I do think it's possible even though the United States has squandered eight years of opportunity.

As a lesbian, I've always worried about the ultra-Orthodox community trying to undermine the rights Israel's secular government has given to its LGBT citizens.

Now, with the military actions happening in Gaza, I've had to think long and hard about what I think. For the first time in my life, I'm actually in full agreement with what the Israeli armed forces are doing. Enough is enough. How long was Israel basically supposed to just bend over and take it as Hamas, the ruling party in Gaza, continued to fire rockets across the border?

But just as important is my need, my community's need to support a country that supports its LGBT citizens. I think history will bear me out that from an LGBT perspective, supporting Israel is the right thing to do.

I remember back in the late 1970's when revolution was fomenting in Iran and the Shah was deposed we were all hoping for a freer, a more democratic Iran. Well that certainly didn't happen. Instead we got a repressive Islamic regime where homosexuality was a crime punishable by death. You had your choice of what type of death-being hanged, stoned, halved by a sword or dropped from the highest perch-but nonetheless death was your fate.

Not much has changed in the just over 30 years since the Iranian revolution. Now, under a supposedly democratically elected president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the Islamic Republic of Iran, gays and lesbians are facing their own pogrom. Unlike Russian Cossacks coming through Jewish villages on horseback reigning terror at the turn of the 20^th century, Iran's pogrom is more high tech. It starts with internet entrapment. Those found out to be gay or lesbian are forced to inform on others and then there's the torture and executions of those found guilty of engaging in "homosexual acts."

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