Last month, the newish executive director of the NYC LGBT Center made the controversial decision to cancel a "Party to End Apartheid!" party scheduled for tomorrow night. Part of "Israeli Apartheid Week," the dance party was being put together by the Siege Busters Working Group, which was also summarily banned from meeting at the center by executive director Glennda Testone. This decision was made hours after Michael Lucas, a wealthy gay porn producer and Israeli-American, threatened to organize a boycott with some of the center's biggest donors. To some, it looked like Testone was caving because of financial pressures, and in the days since the kerfuffle, the critics are still demanding satisfaction.
Siege Busters has gathered over 1,500 signatures calling on the Center to un-cancel the party and permit the group to meet at the Center. Instead of partying tomorrow night, they'll rally outside the building, on West 13th Street, to protest the Center's "discrimination" and "stand up for anti-Occupation queers, Palestinian queers and self-determination!" On its Facebook page, Siege Busters also says:
This isn't the first time the Center is labeling community members "good" or "bad": it's not so long since trans people were literally thrown out when trying to attend Center events. We fought back then, and we'll fight back now. No silencing of voices calling for liberation. Faced with bad press and a torrent of criticism, Glennda "offered" to substitute the fundraiser with a closed meeting about the Center's policies. We're not distracted by Glennda's bad-faith deal. And we don't have to have a meeting to know that the LGBT Center belongs to all of us.
The Center had tried to get the group to agree to a Town Hall meeting tomorrow night instead of the party, but Gay City News reports that "negotiations were fruitless" because Siege Busters couldn't get "clarification of what ground rules the Center will apply going forward in allowing access to the facilities there." During negotiations, the group was told "that our event had generated too much controversy from both sides, and it wasn't 'queer enough'," activist Brad Taylor tells Runnin' Scared. Instead, there will be a protest tomorrow (with "noise and glamor" and a “Community Forum” on Sunday, March 13 at 5 p.m., which Testone says will give everyone "a chance to talk, listen, and be heard."
