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No Joy in Jerusalem Pride Parade

There's something sad about gay groups cheering the passage of seven more anti-gay marriage amendments (because they passed with just a small majority), and journalists, myself included, taking heart that the measures didn't tilt the election in the Republicans' favor. After all, fewer than a handful of Democrats have promised to protect gay rights—employment or housing, much less marriage.

And in Jerusalem today, gays, lesbians and their allies were forced to stage their pride "march" in a stadium at the Hebrew University surrounded by police. Gay groups have been demanding the right to march in the holy city since June, the traditional gay pride month. Two weeks ago, ultra-Orthodox Jews, Muslims and Christians gave up battling each other and took to the streets in violent protest of the pending march. The Vatican also demanded that the march be cancelled. The story was scarcely reported in the U.S.—the Chicago Tribune followed it, and the AP gave it a quick blip:

Ultra-Orthodox Jews have rioted in Jerusalem nearly every night over the past week, burning garbage cans, blocking roads and assaulting police officers in an attempt to get the authorities to call off the march, approved months ago by the Supreme Court.

Where faith and regard for historic holy spots have been unable to check religious groups' mutual animosity in Jerusalem, their shared hatred of gays and lesbians has succeeded. There's no pride in that.

Posted by Cameron Scott on 11/10/06 at 1:23 PM | E-mail | Print | Digg | de.licio.us | Reddit | Newsvine | Yahoo! MyWeb | StumbleUpon | Netscape | Google |