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By Joe Jervis (Montreal, Canada) July 29 | Jerusalem's Deputy Mayor Plans Donkey Parade To Counter Gay Pride.
Angry over the planned gay pride parade in Jerusalem, the city's ultra-Orthodox deputy mayor wants to parade 50 donkeys through the city on the same day.
"This expresses what we think -- that this is a beastly act," Rabbi Yitzhak Pindrus, who represents the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party on the city council, told the Ynet news website. His spokesman Menahem Zaide declined to link the donkey march to the parade, saying only: "Donkeys also have rights to be recognised as couples. We are in favour of donkey rights," he told AFP. However, Zaide said they were still awaiting permission from the agriculture ministry. About 1,000 people were expected to take part in the pride parade under heavy security.
In 2007 marchers at Jerusalem Pride were pelted with eggs and human feces by ultra-Orthodox protesters.
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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Well I think he is welcome to parade donkeys. Provided, of course, no donkeys are harmed. Is he aware of the Christian significance of Donkeys, though? Or is he simply an ass?
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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Hmm...in 2007 the marchers were pelted with eggs and human feces...I assume those items were Kosher, after all, those doing the throwing were ultra-Orthodox. :-/
Age appears to be best in four things; old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read. (Sir Francis Bacon 1561-1626)
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I have been away from here for too long, but I really must protest the news snippet that my friend Brody posted here about the Jerusalem Pride Parade 2010.
The growing success of Jerusalem's Open House to bring gays into acceptance in the holy city (with a very, very large minority ultra-religious population) is making the religious opposition extremely nervous. Brody did them a great service by highlighting one of their efforts here. I am sure that that was not his intention. So, "the facts, Ma'am, just the facts".
The (ninth annual) parade this year took a different route from usual, much longer and ending up in the Rose Garden outside the Knesset. More than 3000 people marched - and no untoward incidents were reported. (Three women bystanders, with a basket of eggs, were arrested.) Two other assemblies took place in protest: one was arranged by an ultra-ultra-ultra right-wing political group of eternal trouble-makers. According to the newspapers "a couple of dozen people participated". Another assembly was organised by the ultra-orthodox religious community (who can usually command the obedience of tens of thousands) and attracted "about 300 people". The proposed donkey parade was nixed by the police and they were told to use cardboard replicas if they really wanted to make their point. I don't think they did.
Jerusalem is a very different city from ultra-secular Tel-Aviv, which is certainly the gay capital of the Middle East. So the parade in Jerusalem is always more subdued that the riotous Tel-Aviv parades. This year the Jerusalem parade marked the first anniversary of the killings in the Tel-Aviv gay youth club. The mother of the youth leader who was killed marched at the head of the Jerusalem parade, and the colourful flags, balloons and placards all had a black ribbon attached.
The parade ended up in the Rose Garden, outside the Knesset, where there was a colourful celebration. Almost all the major media outlets gave full and positive coverage to the event. There is still far too much homophobia in the Israeli population, but the efforts of the Jerusalem Open House have been making appreciable progress. This is thanks in particular to two people: the chairperson of the Open House, Mikie Goldstein and the CEO, Yonatan Gher.
On the stage in the Rose Garden Mikie bade farewell to the crowd. He is going to New York to study for the rabbinate! (Why New York? - that requires a different post, and I'm not sure that people here would be interested.) Mikie will study in New York and his husband, Isi, a diplomat, has been appointed to the Israel delegation to the UN, so they will be together. Mikie, in his quiet but determined way, has expertly guided the Open House towards some kind of "accord" with the ultra-orthodox population of Jerusalem, and the fact that this year the protests were minimal and minor compared with previous years is largely due to his patience and tenacity.
Yonatan and his husband Omer made the headlines a few years back when they fathered a son via a surrogate mother in India. Fathers and child are doing very well indeed, thank you! (When Timmy and I visited Yonatan in his office last year he apologised for having to cut short our chat but he had to pick his son up from kindergarten.) Yonatan has done wonders for the LGBTQ community in Jerusalem. He has put the community on the map, as it were. This year's parade was "Marching for Equality", and at the celebration in from of the Knesset several hundred discriminatory laws were targeted. If the LGBTQ community in Israel is gradually being accepted country-wide it is thanks in great measure to Yonatan's leadership.
This post is already far, far too long. But I really wanted to correct the impression that Brody's post at the head of this thread, inadvertently created.
Peace.
J F R
The paradox has often been noted that the United States, founded in secularism, is now the most religiose country in Christendom, while England, with an established church headed by its constitutional monarch, is among the least. (Richard Dawkins, 2006)
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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I think it is interesting that the city has distanced itself form the idiot deputy mayor Pindrus, and that the police did not allow his real animal parade in the manner that he planned it. Those things are, in themselves, significant.
It's good that the deputy mayor acknowledges that animals are also homosexual! He does this by implication.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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Perversion Pride Parade: Round 2 
