Ultra-Orthodox Jews burning tires fail to block Jerusalem Gay Pride parade

[Bluebear]

JERUSALEM — Hundreds of cheering gay activists marched through downtown Jerusalem on Thursday, while ultra-Orthodox Jews held a counterdemonstration across the city, burning tires and chanting psalms.

With police far outnumbering protesters, there was no violence during the brief Gay Pride parade, an annual event that highlights the deep divide between Jerusalem's secular and religious communities.

Police said 2,500 people took part. Jerry Levinson, a gay activist, estimated that 60,000 gays live in metropolitan Jerusalem...

At the 2005 march, an ultra-Orthodox man stabbed three marchers. Last year, the street parade was canceled because of safety concerns, and gays celebrated instead at a sports stadium on the edge of the city.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003758000_parade22.html

[Warren DeMontague]

1. See, that's something ALL the big Western Religions have in common.

Their crazy, anti-sex, uptight, knuckle-dragging, authoritarian fundy shitheads.

[entanglement]

4. I think "Abrahamic" would be a more appropriate adjective

[mitchum]

8. That is indeed the more appropriate adjective...

and it also sounds nicer than my "angry man in the sky fairy tales for a bunch of raggedy ass herdsmen"

[Madspirit]

6. I Will Say This

There was a stabbing in 2005 but that was an individual nutcase. Of the three biggest monotheistic religions, Christianity, Judaism and Islam, the most fundie of Islam and Christianity call for the death penalty for gays. The most fundie of Judaism do NOT call for the death penalty for gays. Just sayin'...radical atheist here but if I did have to have a preference...I prefer those not out to kill me.
Lee

[Warren DeMontague]

7. I agree. I think the reason for that is that Judaism has had the most time to mature.

And mellow.

Whereas Islam is going through its Inquisition phase, right now.

[Madspirit]

9. That's What I Always Say

When people call Islam so bloodthirsty and all or point out that they don't have a more liberal side yet...like their own version of Christianity's more mellow side...Unitarians, whatever. Islam is new, comparatively. I have lots of Muslim friends, in RL. My girlfriend works in the graduate department of Computer and Electrical Engineering at The University of Texas. 49% of the students in grad. school, in that department, are International Students. Many are from Muslim countries and we call them "friends". Our closest being Bilal, a Pakistani Muslim. He knows we are lesbians and everything and he is totally cool, as are the others. There may not yet be any really liberal sects in that religion but there someday will be. They are still, as you put it, in the Inquisition phase but there are individual liberal Muslims. Lots of them.

Lee

[Madspirit]

2. k&r...n/t

[Bluebear]

3. XOXOXOX

[Madspirit]

5. Kicking Again...

...'cause of all the love I feel from and for Bluebear and because of the importance of the topic.

That was shocking about the 2005 stabbings.
Lee