Local Conflict at San Diego Pride
With great concern, I have watched another, more local conflict that is now unfolding at San Diego Pride. As many of you know, in San Diego, Pride is celebrated in July. For a number of years, St. Paul’s Cathedral has hosted a wonderful interfaith prayer service called “Light Up the Cathedral,” attended by many faith leaders from around the city, as well as many government leaders and Pride officials. Light Up the Cathedral is not an official Pride event; it is organized and hosted by St. Paul’s, but it has traditionally kicked off Pride week in San Diego. St. Paul’s has also marched in the Pride parade, joined by many people from around our diocese (including me), and has hosted a booth at the Pride Festival in the past.
Among the most committed participants in the Light Up the Cathedral service as well as Pride itself have been leaders from our local Jewish community, many of whom I have been honored to get to know and to work with, through Pride and other social justice work. Sadly, this year the Jewish leaders, along with many government officials and other prominent members of our community, have withdrawn from participation in official Pride events, because Pride has chosen a headliner, a performer named Kehlani, who has made comments that many Jews experience as anti-Semitic. Jewish leaders requested that Pride reconsider their invitation to the performer; Pride refused on free speech grounds. Comments the Jewish leaders object to include the performer’s call to eradicate Zionists; Jewish leaders tell me that since 91% of Jews believe in Israel’s right to exist, that is a call to eradicate Jews from American life. In a time in which recent attacks on Jews in Washington, DC, and Boulder, Colorado highlight the reasons many Jews feel fearful and unsafe in our country, the concern these leaders feel over security at Pride events is understandable.
One can deplore Israel’s conduct in Gaza without engaging in hurtful rhetoric against individual Jews. I deplore Israel’s non-discriminate attacks on civilians and its failure to allow humanitarian aid, causing mass suffering, death, and starvation, which I believe violate the principles of just war that are widely accepted in western society as well as Christian theology. I also have deep concerns about the unjust treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank and elsewhere. But those concerns are no excuse for anti-Semitism here at home, or anywhere, which targets our Jewish neighbors and friends and makes them unsafe in their own communities. I am grateful for the interfaith partnership we have long enjoyed with Jews and others in San Diego, and heartbroken to see it endangered.
Because of my sabbatical this summer, I was not planning to attend Pride this year anyway, but if I had been, I would have been faced with a very difficult decision about whether to participate in the parade as a sign of my support for LGBTQ+ people, or sit it out in solidarity with my Jewish brothers and sisters. Both groups are vitally important to me, and to the ministry of inclusion and justice in our community, and both groups represent marginalized people whose safety is threatened. Many community leaders, such as Mayor Todd Gloria and our own St. Paul’s Cathedral, have chosen to participate in the parade but not the festival because of the conflict.
I am writing this to you now because I want Jewish leaders to know of my support, and my regret at the way these events have transpired. I hope that our Jewish friends will still attend this year’s Light Up the Cathedral event, as they have so often in the past. I have been told that many of them will be there, as it is not an official Pride event, but rather a Cathedral event. Our Jewish friends are an integral and highly valued part of our community, and I want them to know that they are invited and welcome as leaders who serve and care for our community. I hope our San Diego Pride community can reconcile and come back together next year and for years to come.
Jesus welcomed all people into his fellowship of love and inclusion, including many people who the wider society would not welcome. We follow Jesus in his model of care and compassion for all. May God bless and keep our community protected and safe for all people – LGBTQ+ people, allies, Jews, Christians, and all the great diversity of people God has created in this world.
