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Jerusalem Homosexuals Push for World Pride Again

By Hilary White

JERUSALEM, August 23, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Jerusalem's Open House for Pride and Tolerance announced this Sunday it would hold a gay pride parade in Jerusalem. The local homosexual magazine, Gogay, reported that though some members of the organization expressed concerns over possible dangers, the executive decided to go ahead in a 5 to 1 vote.

The saga of the Jerusalem Gay Pride event has been playing since the summer of 2005 with religious leaders from all three major faiths of Israel demanding that the ancient city they all hold as holy not be used as a platform for activism promoting immoral sexual behaviour.

In June 2005, city officials in Jerusalem cancelled what was to have been the fourth annual gay pride event. In one of the most politically and religiously volatile cities in the world, where security threats are a fact of daily life, the homosexual movement was willing to risk the lives of residents to make their political point.

Jerusalem City Council was having none of it. They said in a statement, “It is not right to allow the march or other planned activities to take place in the streets of Jerusalem, fearing that it will create an uproar, offend a wide sector of city residents and out of fear of public disturbances.”

In June this year, Israel's Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar wrote to Pope Benedict XVI formally asking for help in stopping homosexual activists from staging a “World Pride” parade in Jerusalem. The weeklong event was set to take place August 6-12.

Politicians in the Knesset presented a petition of over 100,000 signatures opposing the event. A poll showed that 69 percent of Jerusalem residents opposed the event with only 12 percent in support. Twenty-four of the 31 members of the Jerusalem city council also signed a petition against it.

The outbreak of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah put an indefinite hold on the planned event, but the recent ceasefire has opened the issue once again.

In June, Brooklyn-based Rabbi Yehuda Levin, a prominent pro-life leader in the US Jewish community and founder of Jews for Morality, organized an international coalition of rabbis and Muslim and Christian leaders to stop the event planned for 2006. Religious leaders that included Israeli-Arab MK Sheikh Tzartzur and Rabbi Menachem Fruman, as well as rabbis from as far away as Russia and Venezuela, demanded that the event be cancelled.

Fruman said that he had long felt that the conflict over homosexuality “is a religious one,” and urged Muslim leaders to join in opposition.

Jerusalem Officials Ban Annual “Gay Pride” Parade
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/jun/05062402.html

Israeli Rabbi Calls Palestinians To Join In Protecting Holy Land From Gay Activism
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/jun/06062208.html

Chief Rabbi of Israel Calls on Pope Benedict to Condemn Gay Pride as Did John Paul II
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/jul/06070509.html

Religious Leaders Demand Israeli Government Block World Pride in Jerusalem
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/jun/06062902.html

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