"
One Muslim cleric suggested gay events in Jerusalem would attract divine wrath similar to that which destroyed the biblical city of Sodom."

Please don't offend moslesms. They can be dangerosu.

Brilliant to see Jews, Muslims and Christians unite in Jerusalem to fight together over their common enemy.

Reading the entire story on assorted Israeli news sites it turns out the mayor decided to cancel the event because the security advisors felt the parade would be too big of a target for the arab killers to resist targeting it.

Haaretz:

"The city council, including the mayor, decided "it is not right to allow the march or other planned activities to take place in the streets of Jerusalem, fearing it will create an uproar and offend a wide sector of city residents, and out of fear of public disturbances," said Eitan Meir, the director general of City Hall, in a letter to organizers made available by city officials."

 http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArtVty.jhtml?sw=pride&itemNo=591666

Ynet:

J'lem municipality: cancel gay parade

Director of the Jerusalem municipality Eitan Meir has informed the Open House homo-lesbian group that the city has decided to cancel this year's Gay Pride Parade, scheduled for next week, because of the event's "negative affect on residents in previous year." But Open House leaders promised to hold the parade and subsequent demonstration as planned. (Shani Mizrahi)

 http://www.ynetnews.com/home/1,7340,L-3341,00.html?SearchType=TopNav&criteria=&txtSearchString=pride&txtChanID=3083&select1=Site

Jerusalem Post:

The legal action comes after the municipality unexpectedly informed event organizers in writing Thursday that the city would not allow the yearly parade to go ahead on June 30 as planned, saying the march would offend many of the holy city's residents, and spark unrest.

The city council, including the mayor, decided "it is not right to allow the march or other planned activities to take place in the streets of Jerusalem, fearing that it will create an uproar, offend a wide sector of city residents and out of fear of public disturbances," wrote Eitan Meir, Director-General of the Jerusalem Municipality, in a letter to event organizers.

 http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1119493345100

So when "Kelly" says:

"Reading the entire story on assorted Israeli news sites it turns out the mayor decided to cancel the event because the security advisors felt the parade would be too big of a target for the arab killers to resist targeting it."

it appears to be somewhat of an untruth ..........

For quite a while now, Israel has been flogging Palestinian homophobia as proof that it(Israel) is the only 'civilised' 'tolerant' 'democracy' in the region.

That too appears to be somewhat of an untuth.

Ho hum........

Jerusalem is a city full of religious sites holy to Jews, Christians and Muslims. Why should such a parade by allowed in the middle of such a religious city, when all three religions, and indeed most religions and civilised value systems object to practices such as homosexuality.

People were told to tolerate homosexuals, now the homosexuals expect people to embrace it as well, and endure having it shoved in our faces constantly. Give them an inch and they take a mile!

It's simply not true that most societies though history have been anti gay. In fact
the vast majority have either well tolerated all LGBT people and many have even
celebrated us.
It was only, repeat only, early Judaism that came on strong with the patriarchal
homophobia. This was then passed on to Christianity, who separated sex for procreation
from sex for pleasure and enforced the former (and still largely does). Later , Islam, despite
scripture, generally also tolerated (albeit disapprovingly) LGBT until fairly recently
and the fundamentalist wing(s).
It was mostly Western colonialism in the 19th C and to some extend islam (in Africa and Asia) that introduced the wider repression of LGBT arounbd the world. Before that virtually
all cultures outside Europe and some mid east respected us.

William Naphy Born to be gay. Tempus book 2004.

"It was only, repeat only, early Judaism that came on strong with the patriarchal
homophobia".

Of course pirate, let's blame the Jews. The root of all evil eh?

As for Jerusalem, if a majority of the citizens don't want the parade, why should it take place? Here are the Jews, Christians and Muslims joining forces, which is what people always pray for, and suddenly the answer is not what you want. Democracy is not all it's cracked up to be is it?

I am not blaming the Jews as a people- merely pointing out that it was Judaism that
was the only early religion that was homophobic. This strand is still evident today
That Christianity and Islam have joined forces in this case is perhaps not surprising,given
that both developed out of Judaism.
Many Jewish people these days are supportive of LGBT people. There are gay palestinians
who have sought refuge in Israel from homophobic Hamas etc...

As for democracy, human rights take priority over bigotry whether homophobia, racism,
mysogeny etc. If these religious groups wanted to ban something like a Respect-( now
RISE)' festival in Israel celebrating black culture, or a march by women defending their
rights against mysogeny in the middle east would you support bans on such.???

If the majority oppose acts such as homosexuality, surely it is entirely justified that this group not be allowed to march in a holy city such as Jerusalem.

But 'Reality',
there have always been gay, lesbian and trans people living in the holy city.

They're still there today, though now they are also classed as israeli, palestinian, foriegn resident etc.
Queer people are part of the human family and in fact are part of most of our families.
So what are you saying? - that one part of the city's population should not have a right to public expression, while all the other competing identities, factions etc. are having it to the max?
Com'on "reality" - get real!

Freedom of Expression is protected by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 19). This means that everyone has the right to freedom of expression.

Freedom of Assembly is protected also by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 20). This means (again) that everyone has the right to assemble.

Freedom of Movement is (also) protected by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 13). This means (once again) that everyone has the right to move around.

So if you mix all these together - this means that under international law, the march CANNOT be banned - unless it is a threat to the security of the nation.

(Note to people who might miss this - the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is not the same as the European Convention of Human Rights).

So, the country is acting illegally in terms of international law. And immorrally because they are oppressing the opinions of a minority.

No-one is "blaming the Jews". It is entirely legitimate to criticise a religion. I am totally against the historic persecution of Jewish people, but I don't have to agree with everything in the Jewish religion.

Jews, Christians and Muslims coming together? Coming together to be bigoted and prejudiced and homophobic? Great, isn't that fantastic?

How about black and white people coming together to protest against Jews? How would you like that?

People should come together in peace and harmony, not come together to pick on a minority and oppress them. That's just fucked up.

I don't believe in the kind of democracy where the majority get to oppress the minority if that's what they want.

You concede that you should tolerate gay people. Well tolerance includes tolerating their freedom of expression. Why should they have to hide themselves away? Why should they have to be ashamed? Rubbing it in your faces? It's only a march. And it's only once a year. You don't have to watch it if you don't want. They won't be having anal sex in the street. They're just saying, "here we are, we're proud to be who we are, we're people too just like the rest of you and we're all celebrating together" that's basically their message as I understand it. Nothing wrong with that. Nothing unholy about it either.

You quite clearly support the right of Jews not to be persecuted. So why do you feel differently about gay people?

Read the above question again. If you think that's offensive to Jews then that only reflects your own prejudice against gay people. Nothing wrong with being Jewish. Nothing wrong with being gay either.

How would you feel if the Jewish community had a "pride march" of their own and anti-Semitic bigots were saying "ok I'll tolerate Jews but I don't want them to rub it in my face".
That's way out of order isn't it. But it's exactly what you said about gays.

Essentially you believe tolerance should have limits, when it comes to gay people, because you believe they are inferior.

I think this is enormously bigoted and I don't think society should tolerate this kind of opinion.