Montreal's Gay Pride Parade is known as a loud, colourful, and very tolerant event.

So it may come as a surprise that organizers debated whether or not to allow one group to participate in the parade.

The group Qteam is organizing members that will march under the banner "Queers Come Out Against Israeli Apartheid."

On its website, the group describes itself as a "Montreal-based radical queer collective."

Members claim to be anti-imperialist, anti-racist, and committed to social justice struggles.

A similar group got a lot of negative attention during Toronto's Gay Pride Parade, last month – including charges of being anti-Semitic.

Even before the event, when Toronto organizers decided to let the group's members march in the parade, they lost about $250,000 in corporate sponsorships.

It is not clear if Montreal's parade could lose donors as well, but organizers think they will be better able to control participants if they are accepted in the official line-up.

"The reason we decided to keep them in the parade is to manage the whole thing," says parade vice-president Jean-Sebastien Boudreault. "We want to avoid stopping them from coming in and then them crashing the parade," he adds.

One Montreal rabbi questions the place of such a group in an event largely about freedom and tolerance.

"The parade would betray its own principles of defence of freedom and liberty for the gay community by making common cause with those very groups, in those very countries that are the worst offenders when it comes to gay rights," says Rabbi Reuben Poupko of the Quebec Jewish Congress.

On the other hand, the fact that parade organizers will have final say on all banners and messaging does reassure the Jewish Congress.

In the gay village, opinions are divided about the group's place in the event.

"Whether I agree with that group or not is not the issue," says one man. "The issue is free speech."

"I realize a parade is free speech and open to everyone, but I think each group should be promoting their own heritage, their own culture, as opposed to condemning someone else's culture," another man told CTV.

About 100 people are expected to march with the group on August 15th.

Parade organizers are hoping that the focus will remain on the event itself and simply the message of a single, controversial element.