Is Marching as a Gay the Greatest of Sins? By Shmuley Boteach (Jerusalem Post)
“Where were the haredi demonstrators when they were needed to protest disengagement?”
“Yarmulke-wearing men and boys were dragged, and pregnant women with their hair covered were torn from their homes. And even today, as so many of the residents of Gush Katif continue to live in makeshift housing, I know of few great ultra-Orthodox authorities who call what happened by its proper name: an abomination.”
Excerpts;
Homosexuality is powerful – powerful enough, it would seem, to bring about Middle East accord. Muslim clerics who have steadfastly refused to condemn, as an abomination against Islam, the shahids who blow up civilians have now joined many haredi authorities in decrying Jerusalem’s gay pride parade.
Finally, an issue we can all agree on.
I have always found it puzzling that religious people of all denominations continue to see gay men and women as the single greatest threat to civilization and the ultimate sin. To the Islamic clerics the gay marchers are a greater affront than the thousands who kill in the name of Islam.
So who needs gays to finish off the family when straight men and women are already doing that job admirably?
One would have thought that Judaism, with its legal framework always allied to reason, would surely take a wiser approach to the homosexuality question and place it in its proper context. A nation that faces so many existential threats can respectfully oppose public demonstrations of homosexuality, but without making it the defining religious issue of our time.
Not so. The vitriolic Orthodox and haredi response to the gay pride parade and the recent riots in Mea She’arim, which left a dozen police officers injured, show that we Jews are just as capable of mistakenly making gay sex into the foremost religious issue of our time.
WHERE WERE the haredi demonstrators when they were needed to protest disengagement? I do not recall hundreds of thousands of haredim mobilized to protest the evacuation of yeshivot and synagogues which were later ransacked by hate-filled Palestinian Arabs.
Yarmulke-wearing men and boys were dragged, and pregnant women with their hair covered were torn from their homes. And even today, as so many of the residents of Gush Katif continue to live in makeshift housing, I know of few great ultra-Orthodox authorities who call what happened by its proper name: an abomination.
Is it gays who threaten the future of the Jewish state? Or is it terrorist killers, emboldened by concession after concession made by the Israeli government, a great many of which have been sanctioned by those great rabbis now fighting an all-out war against the parade; even as they have given sanction to making deals with terrorists.
Rabbi Ovadia Yosef is a case in point.
I was a yeshiva student in Jerusalem back in the 1980s, when the Lubavitcher Rebbe pleaded with the Israeli government not to trade land for insincere promises of peace which, he predicted, would lead to scores of dead Jews. But there was Rabbi Yosef ordering the Shas Party to participate in government coalitions that weakened Israel’s security immeasurably and gave us the Oslo catastrophe.
RABBI YOSEF is one of the foremost opponents of the gay march, calling it an “evil mob seeking to defile the holy city of Jerusalem.” He has called on every Jew “to protest against the abomination in the holy city,” and has even suggested that the parade take place in “Sodom.”
But what is the greater abomination? The thousand-plus Israelis blown to pieces as a direct result of the Oslo Accords which Yosef claimed Torah law supported, or gay men marching with placards? And when he calls gay people “evil” – did he use the same word for Yasser Arafat, whose deals with the Israeli government he supported?
Commentary;
There is a lot right in Boteach’s article. And this protest should not, MUST NOT be only a Hareidi fight against gay “freedom of expression.”
But we should not discount the message that a huge unified protest and confrontation can send the Regime, the police, Shabak, etc. concerning unity amongst religious Jews of all strains provided that the protest reflects an accross-the-board unity, provided that we see each other; Hareidi, Chassidic, Kipa S’ruga, S’fardi as brethren and that we don’t, collectively or in part, deem any particular branch of religious Jew as expendable.
Meaning, we must display an equal zealousness regarding our concern and help for our Gush Katif brethren as they suffer their current displacement, regarding our brethren in hilltop villages threatened with expulsion and towns slated for “convergence”, regarding our brethren in Kiryat Sefer, regarding our brethren in the Golan as well as in retaining Eretz Yisrael.
If there is indeed this degree of unity inherent in the protest of, and confrontation against the Gay desecration of Hashem’s Name, surely then the Olmert Regime and Israel’s governmental institutions who actively seek to make Israel “Gay-Friendly” will know with whom it makes war and that such a war against Shemayim visa vi the Gays will result in the hedonists ignominious defeat! MB
Recent news and views relating to events scheduled for Friday;
Riots Resume Over Decision to Go Ahead with Gay Parade, By Etgar Lefkovits, Rebecca Anna Stoil (Jerusalem Post)
UPDATE: Gay Pride Parade Re-Routed, but Still On
Excerpt;
“It would start at the government compound (the street linking the Knesset and the Prime Minister’s Office) rather than central Jerusalem.”
When Tolerance is Tyranny, by Ellen Horowitz (Jerusalem Post)
AG: Canceling Parade Threatens Nature of Country
Police Seeking a Change of Venue for Gay Parade
Gaydamak: Decision on Gay March a Disgrace
Ben-Gvir and Marzel Petition High Court Against Mazuz Decision