When I go to bed at night - I'm gay.
I stay like this even after I wake up, brush my teeth and drink coffee.
I am gay when I read the newspaper in the morning - and surprisingly, even as soon as I take the keys and leave the house, the gayness comes with me.
I'm gay at my workplace, gay on the bus ride, in front of the tax official I'm gay, and also at the family doctor.
Even at the Pride Parade, and even at the time of writing these lines, I'm still the same gay man.
A moment after the results of the truth were known, the religious Zionist list came out in a blitz of smiles.
Chairman Smotrich appeared in the studio as if he was the national pacifier, comforting the citizens who did not elect him: "I understand the concern, but we are coming to do good."
What Smotrich called "the concern" is to a large extent also the collection of statements and positions voiced by the members of his list regarding the LGBT community and its rights, and below is a non-representative sample:
"Same-sex relationships are bad, period" (new MK Amichai Eliyahu); "When a man comes and says 'I'm not a man - I'm a woman' [...] I don't accept that, he's a strange person" (MK the circular Avi Maoz);
"The fact that a person is gay is a problem" (new MK Moshe Solomon).
So there is indeed concern, and the next day the religious Zionist elected officials followed Smotrich and announced an exciting news: they do not intend to enter anyone's home, rummage through their actions or their bed.
MK Orit Struck said on the IDF airwaves (full disclosure: in the program edited by me) that "on a personal level, we are not going to interfere with anyone in how they lead their lives."
Avi Maoz also, hours later, sounded a calming siren in the style of the unity of the communities of Israel.
However, a moment later he continued and announced that he would examine a legal way to cancel the pride parade in Jerusalem, and later also in Tel Aviv.
Struck also clarified: "We are going to regulate the public sphere, because this is a Jewish state."
"On a personal level, we are not going to interfere in anyone's life", Strock tries to calm the concerns (archive), photo: Oren Ben Hakon
In the lip service, in the anti-gewald campaign after Voter's Day, religious Zionism seeks to create an artificial and imaginary separation between the gay man who is in my house and the gay man who is through the door.
But sexual identity is not something we leave at home, it is not a secret box that is pulled out from under the bed at night.
Those who try to reduce LGBTIness and present it as a sexual act only, not only condemn thousands of souls to a life of concealment, suffering and danger, but also suffer from a double standard: the expressions of the heterosexual ("straight") sexual identity can be found everywhere - in mass weddings, in holding innocent hands on the street, in the school system (the undersigned has a matriculation unit titled "Home, Education and Family").
Even when Itamar Ben Gvir stands on the stage on the night of his glorious victory and thanks his wife Ila - it is an expression of his sexual identity, and no one thinks to turn off the microphone.
So no, dear chosen ones, you are not doing us a favor when you "don't come into our house", or when you "don't care what everyone does with themselves", and we certainly shouldn't ask you for permission to leave the house and be who we are.
The agony of concealment sometimes takes many years to heal, and in front of everyone who wants to chain us to the confines of our bed we have to say - we are LGBT, and we are everywhere.
were we wrong
We will fix it!
If you found an error in the article, we would appreciate it if you shared it with us