Sixty-five Years Later, Still "Less Than"

According to the Advocate.com, New York state Assemblyman Dov Hikind believes that a Holocaust memorial in Brooklyn should only recognize Jewish victims of the Nazi regime.

"To include these other groups diminishes their memory," said Hikind, who added that he is not opposed to a memorial honoring other Nazi victims, provided it is located somewhere else--not near the Jewish memorial.

When it was decided that a city-owned memorial, in Sheepshead Bay, would allow the addition of inscriptions on smaller makers at the Holocaust Memorial to honor gay men and women, Jehovah's Witnesses, the disabled, political prisoner and others, Dov Hikind made the following statement:

"These people are not in the same category as Jewish people with regards to the Holocaust. It is so vastly different. You cannot compare political prisoners with Jewish victims."

Victims of the Holocaust are all victims, Mr. Hikind. None of them are less than.

Six million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust, and another five million from other groups--including tens of thousands of gays and lesbians--were also murdered. But Hikind doesn't believe those five million people should be included on the memorial. They apparently don't matter as much.

Five million people don't matter.

Hikind is a Democrat, an Orthodox Jew, and very outspoken in his opposition to gay rights. He actually equated the marriage equality bill, awaiting a vote in the senate, with a bill to allow incest. No wonder he thinks we don't matter.

But city officials have an altogether different mantra when it comes to honoring those killed in the Holocaust:

Let not one victim be forgotten.