Thursday, November 09, 2006

Jerusalem Gay Parade Now a Closeted Event

Due to the threat of terrorism in Israel, as fallout from the unfortunate death from shelling of 19 civilians by the Israeli army in Beit Hanoun in Gaza, the Jerusalem parade will now take place as a closeted event at the stadium at the Givat Ram campus of Hebrew University.

On its original route, the parade called for an extremely high number of policeman to be on guard due to threats of violence from the ultra-orthodox, now necessary elsewhere to deal with the more than 80 terror warnings the police have received in reaction to the events at Beit Hanoun. On the current route, only 3000 police will be deployed, instead of the called for 12,000.

Despite the irony, I think it is a good compromise for all involved.

I can't see that the attempt to hold a gay parade in the city center of Jerusalem - which is extremely unpopular in the city itself - is meant to be anything other than provocative.

No doubt, democratically speaking, as the Israeli court mandated, they have that right. But in this case, the flagrant exercise of that right merely inflames hostilities.

The Virtual Talmud blog at beliefnet.com features a discussion on the issue from various branches of Judaism.

And speaking of various branches of Judaism, last week in an article in the Jerusalem Post that I unfortunately did not bookmark, I finally come across the perfect term to describe my approach to Judaism: flexodox.

Labels: ,

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home