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Jews, Muslims & Christians finally agree: gay pride bad for Jerusalem

Discussion in 'BBS Hangout: Debate & Discussion' started by Oski2005, Nov 10, 2006.

  1. Oski2005

    Oski2005 Member

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    I first heard about this yesterday, I don't think there has been a thread. Anyways, the rally happened at a stadium today.

    Plan for gay pride parade roils Israel
    Fear of attacks forces move to stadium site

    By Joel Greenberg
    Tribune foreign correspondent
    Published November 10, 2006


    JERUSALEM -- After midnight at Shushan, the only gay bar in Jerusalem, Tallulah Bonnet, a local drag queen, was on stage, lip-synching another number before an enthusiastic crowd.

    Spirits were high, but there was an undercurrent of apprehension after plans for a gay pride parade on Friday set off violent street protests in Jerusalem's ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods and raised fears of attacks against the marchers.

    "Who's afraid here?" asked an announcer from the stage. "Who's going to march even though they're afraid?" A cheer and a forest of hands went up in the darkened room.

    There have been gay pride parades in Jerusalem in recent years, but this time the planned march triggered a particularly fierce campaign of opposition from ultra-Orthodox Jews, who said the public display would defile the Holy City and deeply offend its residents.



    Compromise reached

    In a compromise reached Thursday, gay organizers agreed to hold a stadium rally, rather than a procession through downtown streets that would have required a more extensive deployment of police already stretched thin by a heightened security alert.

    The concerns about violence against marchers were real. Last year an ultra-Orthodox assailant stabbed three participants in the gay pride parade as it wound through downtown Jerusalem.

    Every night over the last week, youths and riot police have squared off on the streets of the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Mea Shearim. The protesters burned garbage bins, blocked roads with flaming barricades and pelted police with rocks.

    "Jerusalem is not Sodom!" shouted demonstrators on a recent night as they confronted the police. Wall posters in ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods denounced the gay pride organizers as "wicked beasts preparing to defile the Holy City" with a "march of abomination."

    One of Israel's two chief rabbis, Shlomo Amar, went on radio to denounce the gay celebration, calling it a "negative influence on children and youth that is destructive to the life of society."

    There were also protests from Muslim clerics and even from the Vatican, which in a statement issued Wednesday said that a gay parade in Jerusalem would "prove offensive to the great majority of Jews, Muslims and Christians, given the sacred character of the city."

    Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski, himself an ultra-Orthodox Jew, said the event threatened coexistence in the city among its various ethnic and religious groups.

    But for the organizers, the gay festival is an affirmation of their presence in Jerusalem, a conservative place where the gay lifestyle is not widely accepted.

    "Calling the march a provocation is calling the existence of the gay community here a provocation," said Noa Sattath, director of the Open House, the gay center in Jerusalem. "This is going to be a human-rights demonstration. Human rights also have to be protected in the Holy City."



    Religious-secular debate

    Sa'ar Netanel, a gay member of the Jerusalem City Council, said the battle was over nothing less than the character of Israel's capital.

    "The question is whether we want a democratic, pluralistic capital city or a twin city with Tehran or Kabul," Netanel said. "The conflict with the Arabs tends to unite us in a way that prevents discussion of the real problems of Israeli society, which is deeply divided between religious and secular. That debate has not yet been decided."

    On the streets of Mea Shearim, the issue was seen differently.

    "We have only one holy city in the whole world, why come here and cause a provocation?" said Yossef Demgi, 35, a yeshiva student. "Let them go to Tel Aviv."

    The stadium rally, instead of a march, was grudgingly agreed to by the ultra-Orthodox leadership, which called off further protests.

    Yehuda Meshi-Zahav, an ultra-Orthodox activist, claimed victory.

    "They were downtown," he said. "We've pushed them to the edge of town, and next year, with God's help, we'll run them out of town."

    http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/...,1,4149417.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed
     
  2. tinman

    tinman 999999999
    Supporting Member

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    they still dont agree on pork.

    the rest of the world knows pork tastes good.
     
  3. Invisible Fan

    Invisible Fan Member

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    Bacon tastes goood. Pork chops taste goood.
     
  4. thadeus

    thadeus Member

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    Yes, I enjoy the bacon too. I also like makin' bacon, and I ain't fakin'.

    CASE CLOSED
     
  5. arno_ed

    arno_ed Member

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    The best way for two groups that dislike each other to work together (and forget the differences) is creating a common enemy, it is the sad truth.
    People need to know who is their enemy so they know who their friends are (and create a group, people want to belong to a group).
     
  6. univac hal

    univac hal Member

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    Brings to mind this Onion classic:

    Gay-Pride Parade Sets Mainstream Acceptance Of Gays Back 50 Years

    WEST HOLLYWOOD, CA–The mainstream acceptance of gays and lesbians, a hard-won civil-rights victory gained through decades of struggle against prejudice and discrimination, was set back at least 50 years Saturday in the wake of the annual Los Angeles Gay Pride Parade.

    "I'd always thought gays were regular people, just like you and me, and that the stereotype of homosexuals as hedonistic, sex-crazed deviants was just a destructive myth," said mother of four Hannah Jarrett, 41, mortified at the sight of 17 tanned and oiled boys cavorting in jock straps to a throbbing techno beat on a float shaped like an enormous phallus. "Boy, oh, boy, was I wrong."

    The parade, organized by the Los Angeles Gay And Lesbian And Bisexual And Transvestite And Transgender Alliance (LAGALABATATA), was intended to "promote acceptance, tolerance, and equality for the city's gay community." Just the opposite, however, was accomplished, as the event confirmed the worst fears of thousands of non-gay spectators, cementing in their minds a debauched and distorted image of gay life straight out of the most virulent right-wing hate literature.

    Among the parade sights and sounds that did inestimable harm to the gay-rights cause: a group of obese women in leather biker outfits passing out ****oris-shaped lollipops to horrified onlookers; a man in military uniform leading a submissive masochist, clad in diapers and a baby bonnet, around on a dog leash; several Hispanic dancers in rainbow wigs and miniskirts performing "humping" motions on a mannequin dressed as the Pope; and a dozen gyrating drag queens in see-through dresses holding penis-shaped beer bottles that appeared to spurt ejaculation-like foam when shaken and poured onto passersby.

    Timothy Orosco, 51, a local Walgreens manager whose store is on the parade route, changed his attitude toward gays as a result of the event.

    "They kept chanting things like, 'We're here, we're queer, get used to it!' and 'Hey, hey, we're gay, we're not going to go away!'" Orosco said. "All I can say is, I was used to it, but now, although I'd never felt this way before, I wish they would go away."

    Allison Weber, 43, an El Segundo marketing consultant, also had her perceptions and assumptions about gays challenged by the parade.

    "My understanding was that gay people are just like everybody else–decent, hard-working people who care about their communities and have loving, committed relationships," Weber said. "But, after this terrifying spectacle, I don't want them teaching my kids or living in my neighborhood."

    The parade's influence extended beyond L.A.'s borders, altering the attitudes of straight people across America. Footage of the event was featured on telecasts of The 700 Club as "proof of the sin-steeped world of homosexuality." A photo spread in Monday's USA Today chronicled many of the event's vulgar displays–understood by gays to be tongue-in-cheek "high camp"–which horrified previously tolerant people from coast to coast.

    Dr. Henry Thorne, a New York University history professor who has written several books about the gay-rights movement, explained the misunderstanding.

    "After centuries of oppression as an 'invisible' segment of society, gays, emboldened by the 1969 Stonewall uprising, took to the streets in the early '70s with an 'in-your-face' attitude. Confronting the worst prejudices of a world that didn't accept them, they fought back against these prejudices with exaggeration and parody, reclaiming their enemies' worst stereotypes about them and turning them into symbols of gay pride," Thorne said. "Thirty years later, gays have won far greater acceptance in the world at large, but they keep doing this stuff anyway."

    "Mostly, I think, because it's really fun," Thorne added.

    The Los Angeles Gay Pride Parade, Thorne noted, is part of a decades-old gay-rights tradition. But, for mainstream heterosexuals unfamiliar with irony and the reclamation of stereotypes for the purpose of exploding them, the parade resembled an invasion of grotesque outer-space mutants, bent on the destruction of the human race.

    "I have a cousin who's a gay, and he seemed like a decent enough guy to me," said Iowa City, IA, resident Russ Linder, in Los Angeles for a weekend sales seminar. "Now, thanks to this parade, I realize what a freak he's been all along. Gays are all sick, immoral perverts."

    Parade organizers vowed to make changes in the wake of the negative reaction among heterosexuals.

    "I knew it. I said we needed 100 dancers on the 'Show Us Your Ass' float, but everybody insisted that 50 would be enough," said Lady Labia, spokesperson for LAGALABATATA. "Next year, we're really going to give those breeders something to look at."
     

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