A Parade
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| From Gay Pride Par... |
What do you get when you mix a gay pride parade with ultra-orthodox religions? Two years ago there were stabbings and Jerusalem had a disaster for an event. This year, the city added a liberal number of police and military forces. 7,000 to be precise. And the parade went off smoothly.
It was certainly controversial — two gay friends living in Tel Aviv thought it was too provocative an issue to push on Jerusalem. Despite an anti-gay demonstration organised the day before, there was no serious opposition and no trace of violent rioting on the day.
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| Woman debating gay rights issues with a group of young jewish men. No consensus was reached, but the civil discussion was the best thing I saw first-hand to come from the event. |
In fact, I was very encouraged to come across a woman discussing whether or not being gay was wrong with 3 young jewish men. Despite having strongly opposing views, they managed to have an open debate, listening to each others' points without letting anger and righteousness edge into the conversation. It was the type of debate I wish occurred more often in the world.
3 comments:
Nice event! i have a gay friend in a kibbutz just outside Eilat..can I send him this link? I wonder if he went. He is an artist you might like to check out his work. Your Mum met him when he was last in India. let me check out that link to his work and get back to you.
Here is the link http://picasaweb.google.com/zeevicp/ZeevicSArt he has an exhibition some place just now maybe you could go and see it. The work is all made from paper and recycled material. Have fun.
Interesting! Thanks a lot for the link to his art Jacky. And of course feel free to send him the link to my post. If he went to a parade, my bet would be on him going to the one in Tel Aviv. It's large and free of much of the controversy surrounding the Jerusalem one. The two cities are like two separate worlds in many ways.
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