Pride Parade

Pride Parade

There are a number of ways to challenge difficulties facing society. Some will simply ignore the existence of a problem. Others, might try to analyze and seek for an intellectual or practical solution to the problem. A third group will try to use the problem as a means to promote their own selfishness or narrow interest. I do not know too many subjects that are as disputed and in which both parties to the dispute cause themselves grave harm as the challenge of the Israeli society with the issue of homosexuals.

Let us first address the opinion of the religious community. In the past, as in the present, members of the associated with the Shas political party attacked the homosexual community and tried to promote "special treatment" to every "pervert". The then minister of health refused to address the real problem of the homosexual community. Now, the observance of the Sabbath is itemized in the bible more frequently than homosexuality. According to the Talmud, Shabbat represents the whole bible, and its importance is also emphasizes by the fact that it it’s the fifth commandment. Notwithstanding the above, the religious political leaders, sit together openly with those who desecrate the holiness of the Shabbat. They demonstrate leniency and courtesy to these people, as they should. Homosexuality is not the severest felony in the bible, and its position does not equal that of the keeping of the Shabbat. Thus, the attitude of the religious community to the issue of homosexuality should not be violent and rude as the attitude of the religious community to those who keep the Sabbath is not neither violent nor rude.

Pride Parade Amsterdam

On the other hand, the reason for the religious community's attitude to the homosexuals in Israel, is due to the homosexuals attitude toward themselves. They have converted a serious and challenging issue to simple pornography as will be testified by the "Pride Parade" in Tel Aviv, in Amsterdam and in other places. (It should be recorded that Israeli participants in the gay parade in Amsterdam were the most daring in their dress or more precise, undress) and pornography does not deserve a serious approach, but utter contempt as it desecrates the human as a human. It should not attract support but condemnation. It does not deserve consideration but utter blockage. It benefits none but destroys the basics of society as it did in Greece and Rome.

I have listened to the commitment given by the organizers of the Pride Parade in Jerusalem according to which the parade in Jerusalem will be modest and not reflect the parades in Tel Aviv. I appreciate this consideration, alas, it cannot suffice. There is a stigma adopted by the members of that community. They were the organizers of the marches in Tel Aviv, they were sending their representatives to the gay parades around the world, and it was an advocate by the name of Nati Shaked, whose recent success had nothing to do with his profession, but by him becoming the world "Mr. Gay". His pictures in the world press speak for themselves. These parades, are nothing but cheap pornography, and the covering of pornography with modesty, cannot do. The list of the famous people in history who were homosexuals is a distinguished one. Whether the accusations are correct, or not. Alexander the Great, the King of Macedonia, Fredrick the Great from Prussia, Francis Bacon, or Oscar Wilde, (who spent time in jail for his tendencies) the scientist Isaac Newton, the historian, Anthony Blant and even Leonard Bernstein, the conductor. Some of the people were fighting society, some were boycotted by it.

So we have advanced. Today when the homosexual community seeks recognition by society, when the homosexual wishes society to recognize him as one of it, the representative of the Israeli homosexual community, march in the gay parade in Amsterdam, they – and only they – dress with pink belts, and only pink belts thus preventing me from addressing them with the dignity they require. Every human being, deserves respect as such. Even the homosexual. Every member of a minority. But if the homosexual really seeks for society to challenge the problems he faces society should demand he treat himself with dignity.

In the latter part of the sixties, the western hemisphere covered itself with the spirit of "free love". The origin of the Woodstock festival. Demonstrations of love were everywhere. Everything was permitted, and in Plato's Euphoria, all made love to all. And although the reference was lust between man and woman, I would have objected with all my strength to "a free love march" in Jerusalem. As I would not want to see, strippers march in Jerusalem justified by the claim that Jerusalem is the capital city of all. My objections to the gay parade in Jerusalem is not rooted in the tendencies of its participants, but by the fact that they have converted the parade to prostitution. And a capital city has to retain its dignity. The Pride Parade that in the past took place in Jerusalem, or the one in Tel Aviv is not an intellectual challenge. It is not a demonstration of seriousness, but pornography. Those marching adopted the name, "the Pride Parade" but nothing is more humiliating more insulting, event to those homosexuals who wish to live as a mainstream member of society. The essence of the parade is nothing but lust. The question is difficult, the challenge is not simple. Part of the reaction of the religious community is rooted in this atmosphere. A parade which is lust a cheap imitation to Athens and Rome ignoring the result of the aftermath of these two cities.

Zalli Jaffe