NEW YORK—Beginning at noon June 27, the 2010 New York City LGBT Pride Parade will take to the streets of Manhattan. For the third consecutive year, Israeli Gay Youth Organization (IGY), based in Tel Aviv, will participate.
Lucas Entertainment founder, President and Chief Executive Officer Michael Lucas plans to march with the youth group, which also will be accompanied by gay Israelis who now live in New York. The delegation will be easy to recognize: Members will be wearing T-shirts emblazoned with “I’m a Proud Israeli.”
As a nation, Israel is among the world’s foremost supporters of gay rights. The country was among the first to pass antidiscrimination laws to protect the LGBT community. IGY was established in 2002 and has become one of the largest and most widespread LGBT organizations in Israel. As part of its goal to provide a safe and welcoming environment where youth freely can express thoughts and feelings regarding sexual orientation and gender identity, the organization sponsors activities for gay youth ages 15-18 and 18-23. A central goal of the activities is to create a sense of belonging: The young people learn they are not alone but instead are part of a larger LGBT community, which, in turn is an integral component of Israeli society.
Lucas is an outspoken advocate for the LGBT issues and Israeli political causes. His perspective has brought him notoriety in the U.S. and abroad through newspaper and magazine articles, op/ed columns and lectures at institutions including Oxford, Yale, Stanford, Rutgers and New York universities. In 2009, after Russian-born, naturalized American Lucas obtained Israeli citizenship, his production studio released the title Men of Israel, the first gay adult feature film with an all-Israeli cast.
The New York City LGBT Pride Parade began in 1971 as an annual civil rights demonstration commemorating the Stonewall Riots that occurred the previous year. The riots, a series of clashes between police and members of the gay community touched off by a disagreement at the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, are considered the inciting incident for the gay rights movement. In the years since the parade began, has become a celebration of the LGBT community and an opportunity to acknowledge the fight against HIV-AIDS as well as a memorial to those lost to disease, violence and neglect.
The parade begins at the intersection of 5th Ave. and 36th Street.
