"Chicago Dyke March: Full of Shame!"

That's the title of publisher Mark Segal's opinion piece in the latest Philadelphia Gay News, concerning the expulsion from that event of a contingent carrying rainbow flags with a Star of David superimposed on them. The reasons Segal gives for condemning this action are pretty much word-for-word the same ones I would make, centering on the wrongness of politically stereotyping people on the basis of their ethnicity or religion.

Anti-Zionism isn't and shouldn't be an excuse for anti-Semitism -- and I say this as an anti-Zionist and a past volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement.

The fact it even needs to be said is a sad comment on the pathological evolution of much identity politics in recent times. The symptoms are manifest in the rationale for the expulsion given by one of the march organizers, that the flags "made people feel unsafe." It's funny how, as the number of incidents escalates in which this phrase is used, it's almost never the people who use it who seem to be the ones actually experiencing physical force or violence.