LGBT Hypocrisy Betrays Our Liberal Principles

I am angry. Not the kind of anger that burns out after a tweet, but the kind that stays because betrayal cuts deep. I am a gay man. Israel is my home. And I am furious with the hypocrisy of my own LGBT community.

For years I have watched activists who claim to champion equality march under rainbow flags while chanting slogans for the destruction of Israel — the only country in the Middle East where I can live openly. They boycott Tel Aviv Pride but stay silent about regimes where being LGBT means prison, persecution, or death. This is not solidarity. This is betrayal.

Let’s talk facts. According to Equaldex — a database built by and for the LGBT community — Israel scores 62/100 on LGBT rights. That’s not perfect. I’ll be the first to admit it. But then look at the comparison: the Palestinian Authority scores 19/100.

What does that mean in practice? In Israel, homosexuality has been legal since 1963. LGBT people have served openly in the military since 1992. Hate crimes based on sexual orientation were outlawed in 2004. Civil unions were recognized in 2022, adoption rights in 2023, and conversion therapy was banned the same year. Israel is not flawless, but it is moving forward.

Palestine? No recognition of same-sex marriage. No hate crime protections. No employment or housing protections. No gender-affirming care. Homosexual activity remains illegal in places. Nineteen out of 100 isn’t imperfection. It’s systemic oppression.

And yet — who do Western LGBT activists single out for outrage? Not the governments that jail our people. Not the regimes where our existence is erased in law. They target Israel. They attack the only state in the region where I can live freely as myself.

The betrayal isn’t abstract. In 2017, the Chicago Dyke March expelled Jewish women carrying rainbow flags marked with the Star of David, saying they “made people feel unsafe” and that the march was “anti-Zionist.” Think about that: queer Jews barred from a queer march, not for being LGBT, but for being Jewish.

Since October 7, this trend has only deepened. In June 2024, ACT UP New York and other queer groups staged a “die-in” at the Outright International gala in Manhattan, demanding not just a ceasefire but financial support for Palestinian LGBT groups. The irony is grotesque: rallying for a regime that criminalizes queer people, while undermining the only state in the region that protects them.

And even Pride itself has been hijacked. In New York City, protesters smeared fake blood on a Human Rights Campaign float and blocked the parade route chanting “No Pride in Genocide.” In St. Louis, activists chained themselves together with PVC pipes, halting the march for more than an hour. And in London, demonstrators dumped red paint on a float, glued themselves to it, and were finally cut free and arrested under anti-terror laws. These weren’t side shows — they were calculated moves to weaponize LGBT spaces against Israel.

That’s why I am angry. Because this isn’t just hypocrisy toward Israel. It is hypocrisy toward me, and every LGBT person betrayed by a movement that pretends to fight for us while weaponizing its platform against the only democracy in the Middle East that protects us.

This isn’t liberalism. It’s moral collapse. And I refuse to stay silent while rainbow flags are waved over lies.