Jerusalem – This city so holy to Jews, Christians and Muslims is no stranger to spiritual fervor and the passions it can arouse.
Yet a homosexual-rights rally planned for today has stirred fits of rage and threats of violence like few other issues in recent memory. An estimated 9,000 police are to be deployed to protect the gay and lesbian demonstrators.
Jerusalem’s small but vocal homosexual community won a months-long battle with the city’s right-wing-dominated city council, its ultra-Orthodox Jewish mayor and the police for a permit to hold its fifth-annual gay-pride march. The nation’s Supreme Court ruled that under law, gays and lesbians had a right to freedom of expression and assembly.
Mayor Uri Lupolianski and his allies opposed the march. Leaders of his ultra-Orthodox community called it an “abomination” that would “defile” the sanctity of the city.
On Thursday night, gay- rights organizations stepped back from plans to march. Citing national security concerns and the threats against demonstrators, gay leaders said they instead would hold a closed rally at a stadium outside the city.
Police have said they don’t have the manpower to cover the threat of a possible Palestinian militant attack against a gay-rights march.
“It’s like Tehran here … with the hate and religious fundamentalism. It’s absolutely a grave test of our democracy,” said Sa’ar Netanel, Jerusalem’s first openly gay city councilor.
The case exposed the sometimes-conflicted nature of Israel’s identity as a Western-style democracy and the world’s only Jewish state. The fissures between Israel’s majority secular Jewish population and the influential religious sector run deep.
Over the past two decades, Jerusalem has been populated by increasing numbers of ultra- Orthodox Jews, who now dominate government and infuse the city’s politics with their strict biblical interpretations.
Yet Israeli law affords broad rights to gays and lesbians, including adoption and spousal benefits for employees at some state-run industries.
