Religious Leaders Slam Planned Jerusalem Gay Event
By REUTERS from the NYTimes on the Web, March 30, 2005
JERUSALEM -- Putting aside doctrinal differences, Christian, Jewish and Muslim religious leaders united on Wednesday for a frontal assault on a gay festival planned for Jerusalem.
The multi-denominational coalition launched an advocacy campaign to stop Jerusalem WorldPride 2005, slated for August.
Past gay events in the holy city have drawn angry hecklers who argued that such spectacles offend spiritual sensibilities.
"This is not a homo-land. This is the Holy Land," said Yehuda Levin, who represents more than 1,000 Orthodox rabbis leaders in the United States.
The international festival, which includes a parade, academic conference and films, was
"spiritual rape," he said.
But with tensions in the Holy Land already running high over Israel's looming withdrawals from the occupied Gaza Strip, the clerics warned that this time around there could be violence.
"To make a parade will be not be an offence but a provocation to Christians, Jews and Muslims from all over the
world," Vatican Ambassador Archbishop Pietro Sambi told reporters. "No one can be sure it will go on in a peaceful
way." Homosexuality is anathema to many denominations of the three major faiths, all of which have shrines in Jerusalem.
Muslim Sheikh Bouchari voiced concern that the festival could draw down divine wrath akin to that which destroyed the biblical city of Sodom.
"God destroyed the city and we don't want his to happen to us. God will punish us if we allow this to
happen," he said.
The Gaza withdrawal, cast as Israel's bid to "disengage" from fighting with the Palestinians, has incensed Jewish ultra-nationalists who view the land as a biblical birthright.
Israeli security officials have voiced concern that Jewish militants might try scupper the plan by attacking Muslim shrines in Jerusalem, a move that could spark a regional flare-up.
"We ask of the event's organizers: Please don't tarnish the sanctity or cause deep hurt.
There are enough problems with the disengagement. We do not need more
strife," Israeli Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar said at the press conference.
But gay activists remained unbowed.
"We find it ironic that the fundamentalist voices rallying against this event are proving that it is not only love that has no borders, but bigotry
too," Hagai El-Ad, executive director of the Jerusalem Open House homosexual rights center, told Reuters.
"Jerusalem is sacred when people celebrate diversity. This is a democracy, not a
theocracy," he said.
|
