Another Gay Pride parade, another opportunity for cowardly political hacks to bash a democracy and provide cover to criminals.

The latest example comes from Vancouver, where Queers Against Israel Apartheid once more singled out Israel for special attention at a Gay Pride Parade. Their rhetoric was pretty much what we've come to expect.

Apartheid. Boycott. Crimes against humanity. Genocide.

The contingent seemed positively gleeful in It brought out a counter-demonstration by supporters of Israel pointing out the country's liberal tradition with regard to gay ad lesbian rights, nothing there are anti-discrimination laws, equal inheritance rights and benefits for same-sex spouses.

None of this mattered to the partisans. Indeed, other aspects of the parade seemed designed only to confuse participants and attendees by equating other free and liberal countries with the most discriminatory and thuggish regimes.

The march included a bizarre show of 17 flags of countries, with a rally organizer explaining that "10 of these countries have been liberated when it comes to things like same sex marriage and equal rights for LGBTs. Seven of these countries sadly put people to death for being who they are." So you've got the flags of the countries that brutally persecute homosexuals, as in Iran, mixed in with countries like Sweden and the UK, where civil rights are already respected.

Why? If the point is to draw attention to the plight of homosexuals in countries that don't respect their civil rights, isn't it much more logical to show only the flags of the countries where these violations take place?

Without providing any context, attendees are left to guess which nations protect gays and which ones abuse and murder them. Clearly, the flag display only confused the issue -- presumably because of some half-hearted and misguided effort to appear inclusive and non-offensive towards the brutalizers.

Where were the protests singling out Iran, where gay men are put to death and lesbians go to jail? Nigeria, where parts of the country under Sharia law routinely execute gays and lesbians? Saudi Arabia? Pakistan? Yemen?

But, but, but, comes the awkward retort from some representative moron named Jim: "What does Israeli policy concerning gays and lesbians have to do with gays protesting Israeli human and international law violations against the palestinians. This is like arguing: women never should have criticised communist bloc countries, because these regimes promised greater gender equality than western states."

This stance is wrong on so many counts. First of all, the Soviet bloc countries may have promised greater gender equality than the West, but they failed to deliver. In comparison, when we say that Israel provides better protection for the civil rights of homosexuals , it's hard to argue with the facts.

But on the larger point, that homosexuals ought to be able to rally and protest against other types of human rights violations, of course everyone agrees -- in which case, the logical starting point is to go after those countries that have the worst problems (which also happen to be the places where gays are so poorly treated), such as the countries named above -- Iran, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, etc.

You could certainly look to the Palestinians in Gaza as well, but the problem there is not Israeli soldiers or police -- there aren't any in Gaza. Human rights violations in Gaza are carried out against homosexuals, women, political opponents and others on a daily basis by duly appointed officials of the "democractic" Hamas government.

We didn't see those kinds of actions in the rally. There were no Queers Against Iranian Capital Punishment, or Queers Against Genocide in Darfur, or Queers Against Starvation As A Weapon Against Civilians in North Korea. Aside from the QuAII signs, all we saw were "Liberate Queers Everywhere" banners -- "Everywhere", meaning nowhere, because the gutless cowards who organize the overtly political aspects of the Pride parades refuse to point out the real criminals.

Jonathon Narvey is the Editor of The Propagandist

Everyone In This Video Is A Coward and Hypocrite. And You Can Tell Them We Said So