By Gudrun Schultz
JERUSALEM, May 30, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A Jerusalem District Court has ordered the Jerusalem Municipality to pay over CAD$80,000 to a city organization promoting homosexuality, the Gay and Lesbian Center. The payout covers “cultural and social activities” held by the Center since 2003, when the city stopped funding the organization, reported the Jerusalem Post Monday.
Judge Yehudit Tzur accepted the organization’s argument that the city was discriminating against them, saying in her ruling, “[The municipality] must treat this community with equality, out of recognition of the supreme value of equality, and out of respect for the values of tolerance and pluralism, which exist at the heart of democratic society.”
Jerusalem officials have been fighting against efforts by homosexual activists to hold public celebrations of homosexuality within the city. The municipality lost a court case last year after officials banned the fourth annual Jerusalem gay parade.
The city council implemented the ban on the grounds that the parade would offend Jewish, Muslim and Christian residents of the holy city, but the court ruled the injunction was illegal and ordered the city to pay the organizers $13,245 in legal fees.
Plans for a WorldPride event to take place in the city are again underway, after being cancelled last year due to the Gaza pullout. Organizers of the international homosexual event targeted Jerusalem as the venue of choice, after holding WorldPride Rome in 2000, despite the fierce opposition from the Vatican and Catholics throughout the world.
Jewish, Christian and Muslim religious leaders joined together last year in condemning the event planned for Jerusalem, saying it was offensive to believers from multiple faiths who revere Jerusalem as a holy city.
Residents of the city oppose the international event, with 75% of people questioned saying they did not want the activity to take place, according to a public opinion poll released last year.
See related LifeSiteNews coverage:
Jerusalem Officials Ban Annual “Gay Pride” Parade
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/jun/05062402.html
Jerusalem Homosexual “World Pride” Parade Postponed Indefinitely
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/may/05050501.html
Jerusalem Court Orders Gay March to Proceed
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/jun/05062706.html
Orthodox Israeli Jews Unite with Evangelical Christian Group to Fight Jerusalem’s World Gay Pride Parade
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/mar/05031507.html