Pride Parade in Mitzpe Ramon Held Amid Anti-LGBTQ Campaign

Mitzpe Ramon held its Pride parade on Friday against a backdrop of local hostility toward the LGBTQ community. In the morning, anti-LGBTQ posters were hung along the parade route and leaflets opposing the community were placed in residents’ mailboxes. Parade organizer Michal Romi said the day, which should have begun with “a parade of pride, tolerance and acceptance of the other,” instead started with a campaign by the town’s religious settlement faction, which she said was trying to intimidate LGBTQ people.

Romi said signs excluding gay families were placed along the route and posters defining a “correct family” were spread around town. She said the campaign had been going on for years, adding, “We will not let this stop us,” and said the march would proceed with local supporters and participants arriving from across Israel.

MK Naama Lazimi of The Democrats attended with her partner and children, saying she came “to show them in the clearest way possible: family is first and foremost love.” She accused Education Minister Yoav Kisch of fueling anti-LGBTQ incitement, saying the hostility was being reinforced by “the extremist government” and by what she called his secret committee aimed at dismantling protections for gay youth in the education system. She said the country’s children must not be left behind and that her party would work for equality nationwide, including in Haifa, Tel Aviv, Arad, and Mitzpe Ramon.

Other lawmakers and activists also framed the parade as part of a wider struggle for equality. Knesset member Yorai Lahav-Hertzanu said the march was especially important because, in his view, Kisch was bringing homophobic elements into schools and the Shin Bet chief was cutting funding for LGBTQ people. Knesset member Eitan Ginzburg said hundreds of marchers in the Negev were demanding full equality and an end to discrimination, violence, and hatred. Tel Aviv city council member and IGY chair Haneen Ariali said the large turnout was a response to attempts to erase the community, while Hadas Regulski said her presence reflected resistance to what she called extremist religious coercion.