MUSLIM, JEWISH, CHRISTIAN LEADERS UNITE AGINST JERUSALEM GAY PRIDE EVENT

The Jerusalem Post reported on July 5 that "religious officials from the Muslim, Jewish  and Christian communities united Tuesday to oppose a gay pride parade in Jerusalem.  More than 50 prominent religious figures visited the Knesset's Interior Committee to urge MKs to stop the World Pride event, scheduled to take place in Jerusalem next month. Several right-wing religious MKs brought the coalition to the Knesset, asserting that 'never before has the Holy Land seen such a union of religious leaders.' Representations of gay-rights groups, including the Jerusalem Open House and the Coalition for Gay, Bisexual, Lesbian, and Transgender Rights called the coalition 'dangerous' and 'ugly.'" To read the entire Jerusalem Post story, click here.

The Israeli news website Y-Net reported that at the Knesset Internal Affairs Committee meeting on Tuesday, called by Orthodox Jews and Muslim members of the Israeli parliament "dozens of invitees" were present, stacking the hearing with opponents of the march, "including senior staff at the Jerusalem municipality, an ambassador from the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada, , the Coptic and Greek Patriarchates, heads of various Jerusalem churches, students, senior staff of the Internal Security Ministry and the Vatican’s ambassador to Israel."

Y-Net noted that, "A ripple of laughter went through the meeting when MK Ibrahim Sarsur (United Arab List-Ta’al) said, 'I have never had to participate in such a discussion, because in Muslim society we don’t have this problem.'" (Sarsur is at left in the photo next to Orthodox Jewish Knesset member at Tuesday's hearing) I would add that of course they don't "have this problem," as any public expression of homosexuality, let alone of gay pride, is severely repressed in those societies -- both by the religiously inculcated homophobia, machismo, and patriarchal misogyny that results in "honor killings" of lesbian and gay people by their own families in those cultures; and by official policy, as the rare attempts to organize around gay self-acceptance in Muslim countries is usually severely dealt with by authorities, as witness the recent attacks on gay-content websites from Lebanon to Morocco.

Lebanon is, in fact, one of the very few Muslim countries where gays have dared to organize in the light of day -- but with serious consequences. The useful website of the Lebanese gay rights group Helem reports, for example, on the intense campaign against it by the Arab media -- particularly the Dubai-based, Saudi-owned TV network Al Arabiya --after Helem's decision to participate in the May 27 International Day Against Homophobia, and on the calls for the organization's banning by conservative religious members of Lebanon's parliament. The International Lesbian and Gay Association began reporting in 2000 on a government intimidation campaign targeting Lebanese gay websites.

Sarsour, the Arab Knesset member, had earlier warned gays warned gays that "if they dare to approach the Temple Mount during the World Pride 2006 parade in Jerusalem they will do so over our dead bodies."

Holding the World Pride event in Jerusalem has engendered considerable debate in the gay community. A website, Boycott World Pride 2006, has been set up by gays opposing holding the event in the Israeli city at a time when Israel is engaged in a severe campaign of repression in the Palestinian Occupied Territories -- as witness the escalated Israeli military campaign in the wake of the election victory of Hamas in the Palestinian Authority and the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier by Palestinian militants. (The U.K. newspaper The Independent reported today that "At least 20 Palestinians were believed dead, dozens more were wounded " yesterday as Israel "moved to reoccupy a swath of the northern Gaza Strip for the first time since its forces and settlers pulled out 11 months ago.")

One of the other rare gay organizations in a Muslim culture, the group Aswat (logo left), which calls itself an association of "Palestinian gay women" -- a rather obvious rebuke to those who claim that in Arab cultures there is no "gay identity" -- has said that it is boycotting world pride because "Palestinians in Eastern occupied Jerusalem will continue to suffer under intensified checkpoints, increasing racism, house demolishing, confiscating IDs and expanding of Israeli settlements." Moreover, said Aswat, "Even though, the state of Israel holds a tolerant stance towards gays and lesbians, it uses this opportunity to show the world that in Israel a gay man can also be a soldier. However, being a soldier in an occupying oppressive army does not do justice to our quest for peace and tolerance. This is an insult to our struggle for freedom and tolerance. In Israel, violence and hatred are articulated through homophobia and xenophobia, and this very same violence is evident in racism, occupation and war crimes." To read the entire Aswat statement on World Pride 2006, click here.