Gay leaders on
Thursday canceled a scheduled pride parade in Jerusalem
amid security concerns and pressure from fundamentalist
religious leaders who called the public display in the
holy city offensive. The parade, scheduled for Friday,
drew opposition from Jews, Christians, and Muslims,
while hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Jews vented their
disapproval by clashing with police and burning trash
bins in the streets several nights over the past week.
Police had
planned to post 9,000 officers to protect marchers, but
authorities asked organizers to scale back the gathering
amid reprisal threats after errant Israeli artillery
shells killed 18 Palestinian civilians in Gaza on
Wednesday. Organizers agreed Thursday to turn the
public parade into a rally, held inside a closed stadium.
The parade
dispute has become a flash point in the battle for gay
rights in Israel, drawing conflicting stances from
secular society members and influential religious
conservatives. ''Over time we achieved a lot more than
was expected, and it puts us in a very good place in the
cultured world,'' said Uzi Even, a nuclear scientist
who was the first openly gay member of Israel's
parliament. ''Now we are being dragged back into the
dark world of religion.''
Rabbi Yosef
Elnikaveh, a prominent religious leader, has said allowing
the parade to proceed was surrendering to ''mental
illness.''
Top Muslim
leaders said homosexuality is a crime and demanded police
punish those involved in the parade.
Christian
evangelical groups in Jerusalem have called the parade
''provocative'' and demanded the public venue be changed.
Despite the
reaction in Jerusalem, many cities in Israel have thriving
gay scenes. And the Israeli military, an influential and
respected institution, is barred from discriminating
against gays, who are drafted into the army for
mandatory service and are given the opportunity to
progress up the ranks.
Efforts by the
gay community to win approval for same-sex marriage, a key
issue in the United States and Europe, face a major
obstacle in Israel's rabbinical authorities, who hold
a monopoly over Jewish marriage and divorce laws.
Secular groups have been fighting to get a law passed
in parliament permitting civil marriages. (AP)
