The New York Times reports that “major leaders of the three faiths – Christianity, Judaism and Islam – are making a rare show of unity to try to stop” a gay pride festival scheduled to take place this August in Jerusalem.
“They are creating a deep and terrible sorrow that is unbearable,” Shlomo Amar, Israel’s Sephardic chief rabbi, said yesterday at a news conference in Jerusalem attended by Israel’s two chief rabbis, the patriarchs of the Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox and Armenian churches, and three senior Muslim prayer leaders. “It hurts all of the religions. We are all against it.”
Abdel Aziz Bukhari, a Sufi sheik, added: “We can’t permit anybody to come and make the Holy City dirty. This is very ugly and very nasty to have these people come to Jerusalem.”
Warms my heart. Or maybe my temper. Something’s warmed up, anyway.
Link via Finnigans Wake.
“We can’t permit anybody to come and make the Holy City dirty. This is very ugly and very nasty to have these people come to Jerusalem.”?
Oh. So in the name of prejudice we UNITE!!! So that’s how we can bring the different religions together in harmony. Find a common enemy…or scapegoat.
“This is very ugly and very nasty to have these people come to Jerusalem.”
I would think that it would be naive to believe that any city would not have a LGBT population, and that “these people” are already there.
Well, if it’s going to be very nasty, I’m SO there.
I would have to agree with Adrienne on this one — everyone has their own point of view on this issue, I think my opinion is unnecessary, but I do find it ironic that these 3 faiths lay down their swords at the expense of the hot topic of gay rights.
That’s just me.
The chief Ashkenazi Rabbi featured in the NYT article and accompanying picture, one Yona Metzger, was front page news in Haaretz and Jerusalem Post in mid 2003 shortly after his election, on a variety of allegations including several involving sexual harassment of young men. Other allegations included falsification of wedding documents and accepting excessive fees for officiating at weddings. Someone in the comments box at Americablog provided links to an archive site.
Hey! I can truly say that unlike Bush, I really am a uniter, and not a divider.
Oh. So in the name of prejudice we UNITE!!!
If memory serves, the only thing that Archie Bunker and George Jefferson could agree on is their mutual opposition to Hispanics moving into the neighborhood.
This just proves that people of all the Abrahamic religions have equal rights to the cringe factor at the actions of their own religion’s fundamentalist movements. On the bright spot, the Conservative Jewish movement is considering ordaining gay folks (so I can still have some yiddishe pride)
Pish. Us reform jews have been there, done that.
as near as i can determine, Thor doesn’t care who i have sex with.
simply that i laugh a lot while doing it.
merely an observation, not trying to put down anyone’s religiosity…
There’s nothing like a common enemy to unite people who consider themselves under siege. More scapgoats are created by outsiders than by the power elite.
What a waste. Just think what could happen if these people (and the mouth tapers on Florida, and so on) united to demand funding and programs for AIDS, or human rights abuses, or the alleviation of poverty or something.
I guess they figure one may be beaten, starved, sold into sex slavery, oppressed, killed, bombed, ill, , or dying but by god, they wont be gay!
The Daily show featured this story last week. Stewart showed a picture of the lords of religion all decked out in their very elaborate and pretentious costumes. As he pointed out, these pretentious duds look like they are holding their own gay pride festival. Talk about theatre of the absurd. Why do they dress like this?
Hmph. Nothing unites people like a common enemy. I’ll get my beer.
Thor does however smile on “bears” in particular.
Scrutiny Hooligans looked at this last month. Words from both the organizers of the event and from the antagonistic Jerusalem Prayer Team are HERE.
Spread the word.