Following her career as a dancer and choreographer, Pally worked as a columnist, and a dance and film critic in Europe and the United States, and as a prominent activist for gay and lesbian rights, and an advocate for women's rights and freedom of expression. In 1985, Pally became one of the founders, and original board members of GLAAD, the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, an organization formed to protest against homophobic coverage of AIDS in the media, and served as acting chair. Pally's tenure as acting chair was contentious, and led to the resignation of several board members, as well as to criticism of Pally's "supposed foray into heterosexuality", and an assertion that she was unsuitable to hold a position of leadership in the organization due to her alleged refusal to identify as a lesbian. Pally categorically denied the allegations, describing them as "ludicrous" In 1992, Pally founded the advocacy group Feminists for Free Expression, and served as president of the organization. During that period, Pally published two books on censorship: Sense and Censorship: The Vanity of the Bonfires, and Sex & Sensibility: Reflections on Forbidden Mirrors and the Will to Censor. After earning a doctorate from New York University in 1995, Pally embarked upon an academic career.
Academic career
Pally teaches at New York University, at Fordham University, and is a regular guest professor at the Theology Faculty of Humboldt University zu Berlin. Her most recent books are Commonwealth and Covenant: Economics, Politics, and Theologies of Relationality and The New Evangelicals: Expanding the Vision of the Common Good.. Commonwealth and Covenant has been selected by the United Nations Committee on Education for Justice “to be distributed in their materials to “educators, academics, policy-makers, parents, students, teacher training institutes, and curriculum developers throughout the world” and it was nominated for a Grawemeyer Award in religion. Pally's research interests include religion, culture, and politics as well as the intersection of language and culture. During the 1990s, she wrote in critique of government censorship in such works as Sense and Censorship, and Sex & Sensibility: Reflections on Forbidden Mirrors and the Will to Censor but has stepped away from legal questions in recent years. Pally spoke at the World Economic Forum in 2010 and has been awarded the prestigious Mercator Guest Professorship as well as grants from the German Academic Exchange Service, from the Fritz Thyssen Foundation and the Telos/Paul Piccone Institute. In addition, she is the co-recipient of a German Research Foundation grant to compare the political ethics and activism of American and German evangelicals, the only study of its kind. In 2007 and 2010, she was a Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin. In addition to her academic work Pally has been a columnist in the U.S. and Europe for over 30 years, writing for both mainstream publications such as The Washington Post and Penthouse, as well as special-interest magazines like The Advocate. She is also a recipient of the Gay Press Association Award for Excellence in Editorial and Commentary.
