GOP Rabbi Compares Israel’s Gay Pride March to “Nazis Marching in Skokie”
Listed in: Israel, GOP Hypocrisies, NJDC News, Press Releases
Washington, DC: According to an article today by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, politically conservative Rabbi Daniel Lapin compared this summer's Jerusalem World Pride 2005 festival and march to "the Nazis marching in Skokie." Lapin, the president of the conservative political group Toward Tradition and a close ally of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX), went on to describe a scheduled United Jewish Communities Pride in Israel Mission as "an act of childish self-indulgence rather than an act of concern for the Jewish people."
"Rabbi Lapin's comparison is appalling, and his anti-gay attitude -- shared by too many in the GOP -- is patently offensive," said National Jewish Democratic Council Executive Director Ira N. Forman. "But I'm frankly surprised at Rabbi Lapin's lack of creativity -- that he would resort to the now-standard GOP maneuver of inappropriately invoking Holocaust and Nazi rhetoric. In doing so, Rabbi Lapin joins the ever-growing ranks of conservatives and Republicans who only seem to be able to comment by summoning Holocaust rhetoric, and -- in turn -- by desecrating the memory of the Holocaust.
"Use of such Nazi language seems to be an epidemic spreading through the Republican Party, witness GOP Senators Sessions and Inhofe, Representatives Cole and King, White House insider Grover Norquist, even Bush-Cheney 2004 campaign ads... the list goes on and on. Once and for all, conservatives and Republicans must stop using inappropriate Holocaust comparisons, and they must stop invoking anti-gay rhetoric and canards," Forman added.
