At the rally for Israel in Herrick Park on Sunday, a source of controversy was not counterprotesters, who never showed up, but the cancellation of a speaker, Judith Kasen-Windsor. The cancellation was the culmination of over a month of exchanges between Ms. Kasen-Windsor and Mitchell Agoos, the event’s organizer.
Around the end of May, according to both of them, Mr. Agoos asked Ms. Kasen-Windsor, an L.G.B.T.Q.+ activist, if she would address the crowd at the rally. They met at her home, where, he later recalled, he told her that the event would be only about Israel and the hostages, not L.G.B.T.Q.+ issues.
Ms. Kasen-Windsor said he’d told her “No gay stuff” at that first meeting, and repeated it numerous times in the weeks ahead. Mr. Agoos, on the other hand, said he’d simply set “parameters.” There could be “no discussion of any other worthwhile cause at this rally other than Israel and the hostages.”
“I was going to mention that Israel is the only country in the Middle East that is diverse,” Ms. Kasen-Windsor said, adding that she’d hoped to discuss Israel’s acceptance of people from many backgrounds, including members of the L.G.B.T.Q.+ community. Mr. Agoos would not allow that, she said, allegedly telling her not to mention it.
She also planned to briefly spotlight Israel as a thriving democracy in the region, she said. “I didn’t think that was ‘gay stuff.’ I really didn’t.”
As the rally approached, she said, Mr. Agoos repeatedly requested to see her speech. “It got to the point where he did not want me to even introduce myself as an American woman, gay, Jewish. I told him that’s how I’m going to introduce myself.”
After talking with other speakers, Ms. Kasen-Windsor added, she determined that no one else’s speech had required approval from the event’s organizer. Mr. Agoos, in justifying his request, said he believed Ms. Kasen-Windsor had planned to connect the suffering of the L.G.B.T.Q.+ community to the suffering of Israel.
Ms. Kasen-Windsor contacted an acquaintance, Ritchie Torres, an openly gay congressman who represents a Bronx district, who, according to both Mr. Agoos and Ms. Kasen-Windsor, offered to provide her a statement to be read at the rally. About two weeks ago, Ms. Kasen-Windsor said, she told Mr. Agoos she planned to read the congressman’s statement aloud and then leave the stage without speaking.
As the holiday approached, she said, she had difficulty obtaining the statement from Mr. Torres’s staff, but kept assuring Mr. Agoos that she would have it in time for the rally. During that time, she said, he repeatedly asked to see it.
Four days before the event, Ms. Kasen-Windsor received an email from Mr. Agoos canceling her speech. “There wasn’t room, in my mind . . . for another cause to be discussed at the rally,” Mr. Agoos told The Star, adding that “it didn’t come lightly, and it didn’t come without controversy.”
“He put me back in the closet,” Ms. Kasen-Windsor said. “This was one of the worst homophobic things I think I’ve ever gone through.”
