BY THE VILLAGE SUN | Pride will be on full display as thousands take to the streets for the annual March Sunday.
Things will kick off at 25th Street and Fifth Avenue at noon. The righteously festive procession will then wend down to Eighth Street in Greenwich Village, turn right across Eighth Street, Greenwich Avenue and Christopher Street, passing the Stonewall Inn — the birthplace of gay liberation — and then go back up Seventh Avenue to 16th Street in Chelsea, where everyone will disperse.
There’s some controversy this year, though, as members of the Israeli Consulate have said they will march despite, according to the Associated Press, two of the event’s half-dozen grand marshals accusing the country of “genocide” in its war to wipe out Hamas after the terrorist group’s horrific Oct. 7 surprise attack. While Israel is an inclusive society with the strongest L.G.B.T. rights of any country in the Middle East, some critics nevertheless try to accuse it of “pinkwashing.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently said the Gaza fighting’s “intense phase” should be done in about a month, after which Israel will shift some of its troops to its northern border to defend against aggression from Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based terrorist organization.
The first New York City Pride March was held in 1970, a year after the Stonewall Uprising.
On Friday, President Joe Biden and singer Elton John were on Christopher Street to attend the opening of the Stonewall National Monument Visitor Center.
“It set an example, I’m not exaggerating, for the entire world,” Biden said of the Uprising 55 years ago when gays and drag queens fought back against one of the then-regular police raids. “That’s what this center, this monument, this month is all about.”
Despite Biden’s sadly feeble performance in Thursday night’s debate that has many Democrats in panic mode with the presidential election looming just four months away, he received a rousing reception Downtown.
“I watched a large crowd wait for over one and a half hours in the sun to see Biden pass on his way to Stonewall,” one local resident said. “And they cheered him heartily!”
Earlier in the day, though, Jewish Voices for Peace and ACT UP — the latter which has lately pivoted to focusing on the Israel-Palestinian issue — posted banners and posters around the Village with the message: “Queers to Biden: Stop Funding Israel.” The materials were put up at the NYC AIDS Monument at the St. Vincent’s Triangle and other spots, including two blocks away outside the Cubbyhole, a lesbian bar on W. 12th Street.
Some of the posters call the Stonewall Riots an “intifada” and depict bricks being fired from slingshots.
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