The Center board has officially reversed its decision to bar the Siegebusters group from meeting at the facility. We are currently coordinating with legal counsel to ensure this policy shift guarantees future access for all organizers regardless of their political viewpoint.
April 6, 2011
Save New York’s LGBT Center! Don’t Let Wealthy Bigots Shut Down Free Speech
Final supporters
We, the undersigned, are LGBT people and allies who condemn the stifling of free speech at New York’s LGBT Center due to pressure from wealthy supporters of Israel’s anti-Palestinian policies. A slanderous press release followed by a threatening call-in campaign led to the cancellation of an Israeli Apartheid Week event scheduled for March 5, 2011, and the right of peaceful pro-Palestine activists in the Siegebusters group to meet at the Center.
New York’s LGBT Community Center has a 28-year history of accommodating the needs of oppressed and marginalized groups and allowing controversial opinions to be aired. It is a sanctuary for those seeking a democratic organizing space. The recent press release by Michael Lucas, a wealthy gay porn entrepreneur, threatened a boycott and defunding campaign if the Center didn’t cancel the event, which it tragically agreed to do.
If activists allow this decision to stand, the Center will go from being a liberated space of democracy and free speech to yet another occupied, homogenized venue where wealthy and powerful voices can squelch all the rest.
Lucas’s accusation that the March 5 event and groups organizing to build it are “anti-Semitic” is not simply an odious lie, it is an attempt to manipulate hatred of anti-Semitism to draw attention away from the ongoing Israeli crimes of dispossession, systematic racism, collective punishment and wholesale warfare on a population guilty of nothing other than their own existence. An international campaign for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel has global support, including diverse voices from queer theory icon Judith Butler and South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu to Auschwitz survivor and International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network spokesman Hajo Mayer.
The LGBT Center must return to its mission as a space for the oppressed and marginalized and reverse its decision on the March 5 event and reinstate the right of Siegebusters activists to meet there.
Please email or call the Executive Director of the Center, Glennda Testone at [email protected] or 212-620-7310
In solidarity and struggle,
Siegebusters Working Group,
Existence is Resistance,
Sherry Wolf, author, Sexuality and Socialism; International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network
Cleve Jones, AIDS and LGBT rights activist
Judith Butler, author, Gender Trouble; Professor, University of California-Berkeley
Sarah Schulman, Writer. Distinguished Professor of the Humanities, City University of New York.
Updates
Reached 1,000 supporters
February 27, 2011
February 26, 2011
We have reached one hundred signatures which provides the necessary leverage to request a formal meeting with the Center board. I am drafting a letter tonight to initiate this process and demand an explanation for the cancellation policy.
Reached 100 supporters
February 23, 2011
6 Comments
money shouldn't dictate what happens at a community center. very sad to see this happen.
The center is supposed to be for everyone, not just people with money who want to control who gets to speak. Disappointing.
Whatever happened to solidarity? This is weak.
This is ridiculous. Being gay doesnt mean we all share the same politics and we shouldnt be forced to anyway. Let them meet!
Total cowardice from the board. Stand up to the bullies next time.
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The Center board has officially reversed its decision to bar the Siegebusters group from meeting at the facility. We are currently coordinating with legal counsel to ensure this policy shift guarantees future access for all organizers regardless of their political viewpoint.
April 6, 2011
Save New York’s LGBT Center! Don’t Let Wealthy Bigots Shut Down Free Speech
Final supporters
We, the undersigned, are LGBT people and allies who condemn the stifling of free speech at New York’s LGBT Center due to pressure from wealthy supporters of Israel’s anti-Palestinian policies. A slanderous press release followed by a threatening call-in campaign led to the cancellation of an Israeli Apartheid Week event scheduled for March 5, 2011, and the right of peaceful pro-Palestine activists in the Siegebusters group to meet at the Center.
New York’s LGBT Community Center has a 28-year history of accommodating the needs of oppressed and marginalized groups and allowing controversial opinions to be aired. It is a sanctuary for those seeking a democratic organizing space. The recent press release by Michael Lucas, a wealthy gay porn entrepreneur, threatened a boycott and defunding campaign if the Center didn’t cancel the event, which it tragically agreed to do.
If activists allow this decision to stand, the Center will go from being a liberated space of democracy and free speech to yet another occupied, homogenized venue where wealthy and powerful voices can squelch all the rest.
Lucas’s accusation that the March 5 event and groups organizing to build it are “anti-Semitic” is not simply an odious lie, it is an attempt to manipulate hatred of anti-Semitism to draw attention away from the ongoing Israeli crimes of dispossession, systematic racism, collective punishment and wholesale warfare on a population guilty of nothing other than their own existence. An international campaign for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel has global support, including diverse voices from queer theory icon Judith Butler and South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu to Auschwitz survivor and International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network spokesman Hajo Mayer.
The LGBT Center must return to its mission as a space for the oppressed and marginalized and reverse its decision on the March 5 event and reinstate the right of Siegebusters activists to meet there.
Please email or call the Executive Director of the Center, Glennda Testone at [email protected] or 212-620-7310
In solidarity and struggle,
Siegebusters Working Group,
Existence is Resistance,
Sherry Wolf, author, Sexuality and Socialism; International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network
Cleve Jones, AIDS and LGBT rights activist
Judith Butler, author, Gender Trouble; Professor, University of California-Berkeley
Sarah Schulman, Writer. Distinguished Professor of the Humanities, City University of New York.
Updates
Reached 1,000 supporters
February 27, 2011
February 26, 2011
We have reached one hundred signatures which provides the necessary leverage to request a formal meeting with the Center board. I am drafting a letter tonight to initiate this process and demand an explanation for the cancellation policy.
Reached 100 supporters
February 23, 2011
6 Comments
FREE SPEECH MATTERS. If we start banning people because some rich guy throws a tantrum, we lose everything this place stood for.
money shouldn't dictate what happens at a community center. very sad to see this happen.
The center is supposed to be for everyone, not just people with money who want to control who gets to speak. Disappointing.
Whatever happened to solidarity? This is weak.
This is ridiculous. Being gay doesnt mean we all share the same politics and we shouldnt be forced to anyway. Let them meet!
Total cowardice from the board. Stand up to the bullies next time.
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FREE SPEECH MATTERS. If we start banning people because some rich guy throws a tantrum, we lose everything this place stood for.