Transgendered people aren’t typically top-of-mind in Ontario’s staid legislature, but they were the toast of MPPs on Wednesday.

The three parties had come together for an impressive show of unity on a matter of diversity that had divided them for years: protecting transgendered people from discrimination.

The NDP’s Cheri DiNovo, a United Church minister, called for a celebration at next month’s Pride parade: “I can’t imagine a better victory party to celebrate five years of hard work.”

Don’t count on it. You’d think the lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans (LGBT) community would take their cue from DiNovo and the MPPs by rallying in a similar show of unity.

No, the next battle is at hand, pitting Pride against itself — and, of all things, Israel.

Once again, a group called Queers Against Israeli Apartheid is hijacking Toronto’s parade to solve the world’s problems. Not atrocities in Syria, gay-bashing in Saudi Arabia or homophobia under Hamas in Gaza, but Israel’s occupation of Palestine.

I’ve argued before that Israel’s 45-year occupation of Palestine is at times brutal, but doesn’t remotely fit any common understanding of “apartheid” — racial segregation. The term only distracts people with crude analogies that detract from the debate.

Undeterred, QuAIA remains a perennial lightning rod at Pride, poking people in the eye with its excoriation of Israel at a parade that doesn’t normally showcase geopolitical conflict. The single-minded singling out of Israel — an island of LGBT tolerance in a region of deep-seated homophobia — is bizarre.

It also aroused an intense debate at city hall, which provides annual funding for Pride ($124,000 this year). The parade also gets $276,000 from the Ontario government, and while MPPs have never targeted that funding, they unanimously condemned the term “Israeli apartheid” in 2010 (DiNovo among them).

As the noose tightened at city hall last year, QuAIA ducked — voluntarily sitting out the 2011 parade. But after the city’s legal advisers suggested “apartheid” didn’t violate its anti-discrimination code, QuAIA proclaimed its triumphal return to next month’s parade.

Now a Jewish gay and lesbian group, Kulanu Toronto, has filed a formal complaint, triggering an elaborate dispute-resolution process put in place by Pride in anticipation of this incessantly internecine conflict.

QuAIA’s secret to success: the legal bar was always set too high. Everyone got bogged down on whether “Israeli apartheid” rises to the level of “hate speech.”

That’s the wrong question, because it clearly doesn’t. It’s inflammatory, not discriminatory. Hurtful, not hateful.

QuAIA’s quest is, however, tangential and tendentious. It is at cross- purposes with the celebration of inclusiveness that is Pride’s credo — drawing people into the event rather than driving them away.

That’s the backdrop against which QuAIA should be judged by Pride: How much tolerance should a parade about tolerance display to a group that sets out to sow discord within its own and other communities? How big a tent can Pride build without trampling on the beliefs of others, or crowding them out entirely?

QuAIA’s quixotic crusade against a mythical “apartheid” regime will suck the oxygen out of Pride, when it could be celebrating two recent victories closer to home — gay straight alliances for students, and protection for transgendered people.

Pride has become a victim of its own success. The more mainstream the parade becomes, the more easily it is manipulated.

I’ve never argued for giving Israel’s occupation a free pass. I just wouldn’t give QuAIA a free pass to rain on someone else’s parade, by piggybacking on Pride and demonizing Israel with semantic sophistry.

Here’s a hint: Don’t ban them, and don’t censor their words. Just disinvite them — and invite them to speak freely at their own parade, on their own dime. Not mine.

And take DiNovo’s advice: celebrate a moment of pride on behalf of transgendered people and their long march against discrimination. (© Copyright Toronto Star 1996-2012 06/14/12)