Jerusalem’s gay community was preparing on Wednesday for strong opposition to its annual Gay Pride march after provocative posters comparing homosexuals to child molesters were plastered all over the Holy City.
Sharp opposition to Jerusalem’s third annual Gay Pride parade, set to take place on Thursday under the slogan ”Love without Borders”, was evident throughout the week with the appearance of an offensive poster campaign accusing the homosexual community of paedophilia.
”Mother, I heard that bad people who sexually assault and sodomise children are holding a parade … Help me! I am afraid!” read the posters, which were put out by a group reportedly linked to the banned racist movement Kach.
Parade organisers appeared unruffled by the virulent campaign, which has made an annual appearance ever since the first Jerusalem Pride took place in 2001.
”I’m not taking any of this lightly but these things have to be seen in context,” said Haggai Elad, director of the Jerusalem Open House, a community centre for the city’s gay and lesbian community.
”We faced similar things last year and the year before, and although the opposition is steady, it’s become a tradition.”
Jerusalem Pride is more than a demonstration of gay rights, Elad said.
In a city rife with taboos, it brings together religious and non-religious people as well as Jews and Palestinians and squarely addresses broader issues of pluralism, tolerance and coexistence, he said.
”It’s about what kind of city we live in, and eventually about what kind of world we live in. It’s about pluralism, tolerance, optimism and a sense of normalcy in the city of Jerusalem, which is something very much needed here,” he said.
”If there’s anywhere in the world where having Pride is so important, it’s Jerusalem.”
Despite the antipathy for gays in religious circles in Jerusalem, homosexuality was legalised in 1988 and, since then, the rights of gay couples have been recognised in the courts.
Saar Netanel, an openly gay member of the Jerusalem city council, said the fact the march is going ahead is a victory for democracy.
”In a city which is so intolerant and biased, a city which has known so many attacks and bloodshed, to have one day of optimism, love and tolerance at a march which includes everyone — Jews, Arabs, religious and secular participants, gays, lesbians and straight people — seems essential to me,” he said.
Many in this largely conservative city, which has a strongly religious and traditional make-up, believe Jerusalem Pride to be a sacrilegious event that defiles the nature and character of this city, holy to three faiths.
”This parade of abomination has no place in Jerusalem. In place of parading through the streets of Jerusalem, I would send the participants for urgent psychological treatment,” far-right activist Itamar Ben-Gvir told the English-language Jerusalem Post on Sunday.
Netanel retorted: ”What is it that makes Jerusalem holy — the stones, the buildings? First and foremost you have to respect human beings. That is holy in my eyes. Gay Pride shows respect for human beings, it shows tolerance and makes a stand against racism, and that’s holy in my eyes. And for that reason exactly, Jerusalem is the key place where it should happen.”
Since the start of the intifada, or Palestinian uprising, in September 2000, civil and human rights had largely taken a back seat on the public agenda, Netanel said.
”Today, with attacks happening every day and a very bad economic situation and the seemingly endless Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it really puts all the issues of human and civil rights on to the back burner,” he said.
”But people have to realise there is another community that exists here — the gay and lesbian community. We are here, we are queer — so get used to it.” — Sapa-AFP