This year, in part due to growing global support for Palestinians, an analysis of pinkwashing is on more people’s tongues than ever before. Ghanem and Koval both organize in Raleigh, North Carolina, where Out! Raleigh Pride, the city’s major pride event, agreed to join the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement for the first time this year. This week the organizers of Out! Raleigh Pride confirmed via email that they will give back funds the organization received from pro-Israel entities in order to become BDS compliant. That may make Raleigh the first major mainstream pride event in the U.S. to formally join the BDS movement.
Queer people should support the Palestinian people. Pinkwashing has become increasingly ridiculous. Corporations are signaling they support queer people and then donating to Republicans. Israel's genocide isn't improving the conditions of queer people anywhere or spreading tolerance of any kind. We shouldn't allow ourselves to be used as a wedge issue against the interests of the Palestinians when corporations have no interests upholding or forwarding the rights and aspirations of either group.
Here is an excerpt from Project 2025 from page 481.
Protect faith-based grant recipients from religious liberty violations
and maintain a biblically based, social science–reinforced definition
of marriage and family. Social science reports that assess the objective
outcomes for children raised in homes aside from a heterosexual, intact
marriage are clear: All other family forms involve higher levels of instability
(the average length of same-sex marriages is half that of heterosexual
marriages); financial stress or poverty; and poor behavioral, psychological,
or educational outcomes.
For the sake of child well-being, programs should affirm that children
require and deserve both the love and nurturing of a mother and the play
and protection of a father. Despite recent congressional bills like the
Respect for Marriage Act that redefine marriage to be the union between
any two individuals, HMRE program grants should be available to faith-
based recipients who affirm that marriage is between not just any two adults,
but one man and one unrelated woman.
Republicans view heterosexual marriages as superior to homosexual marriages. Republicans came for Roe v. Wade and they are going to come for Obergefell v. Hodges. Gay men aren't done fighting for their rights no matter how old they are. Using intersectionality as a road map to allies in our fight for LGBTQ+ rights is essential. This includes the Palestinian people. Allowing ourselves to be divided plays right into the hands of the people who want to take our rights away.
Pinkwashing was first used to refer to companies that superficially supported breast cancer awareness. It has since been used to refer to companies that superficially support queer people. Given the context of the op's article, pinkwashing or rainbow-washing could be used interchangeably. Using pinkwashing to refer to companies using the pink ribbon for disingenuous marketing campaigns is still a valid usage of the term.
The queer community is pretty split on this topic actually. Some people are pro-peace towards conflicts they hear about online; others are less keen to defend a group that actively would like to see them dead. What a pickle.
Actually, we did get ours and it was a hell of a lot of work. Surviving the AIDS crisis, Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, “conduct unbecoming” in the military, strung up on fence posts in Wyoming, public arrests, family disenfranchisement, discrimination in housing, marriage, legal rights…just getting started. If that means fuck you because I don’t equate a war between Israel and Palestine as the same thing, then yes, “fuck you, Trevor”.