Conflict resolution
This is one way to stop the gay pride parade in Jerusalem.
The Time magazine article has an intruiging opener.
Gay activists and ultra-Orthodox Jews seemed on a collision course until a new Palestinian terror threat changed the equation
While they were busy fighting with each other, it seems, terrorists were making their own plans for the event.
It was billed as an apocalyptic showdown: A band of scared but stubborn gay Israelis who wanted to celebrate their sexuality on a march through Jerusalem, versus 100,000 ultra-Orthodox Jews who vowed to tear the gays into confetti-sized pieces for turning the Holy City into “Sodom.”
Why do they want to publicly “celebrate their sexuality”? Last summer when the “Gay Games” were held in Chicago, even some of the media started asking why this was necessary.
That was responsible journalism. Some of this piece does not entirely reach that mark.
In the end, the clash between gays and the keepers of Jerusalem’s three faiths — in a rare display of solidarity, rabbis, priests and Muslim clerics in the holy city all united against the parade — was averted because of security fears. (Hatred of homosexuality, it seems, is the one thing that unites Islam, Judaism and Christianity in the fractious Holy City.)
That last line is a cheap shot. This is not a commentary or editorial piece. It’s straight reporting (no pun intended) in Time’s World section. And it makes this parenthetical sort of aside crack about “hatred of homosexuality” uniting the three monotheistic religions. This kind of journalism is part of the problem and not the solution in the culture wars. It’s inflammatory and irresponsible, and beneath the dignity of the long and honorable tradition of Time.
And there’s more of same:
The security threat foremost on the minds of authorities may not have been gay-bashing extremists, but Palestinian suicide bombers creeping into Jerusalem.
“Gay-bashing extremists.” This kind of language de-legitimizes the writer’s professional integrity.
Tension has been rising in Jerusalem in recent days already because of this week’s violence in Gaza. So the Israeli security forces have to watch their own actions and reactions on that front, and the gay parade comes to town.
In the 24 hours leading up to the planned Gay Parade, Israeli police received 80 security alerts in Jerusalem, and officials said that the 12,000 police officers required to protect the gay pride march would leave the city wide open to terrorists. Organizers relented and decided to hold a rally instead, inside a track stadium that could be guarded by a mere 3,000 police. “By going ahead with the parade, we would have been as irresponsible as the religious extremists,” says organizer Elena Canetti, “Jerusalem would have been set on fire.”
About 2,000 participants — far fewer than the cops protecting them — showed up at the rally.
So 3,000 police officers guarded 2,000 participants of the gay pride rally, and its organizers credit themselves with exercising responsible judgment, sparing Jerusalem from being “set on fire.”
There’s plenty of incendiary action — and inflammatory rhetoric — going on anyway, and nobody benefits from that. There would, however, be some benefit in looking at the reason for the “rare solidarity” among Christians, Muslims and Jews over this issue, in their teaching about moral order and truths about the human person. That has everything to do with love and nothing to do with hatred.
Catholic World News is carrying this story, with slightly different numbers, and an interesting little question in the comment section from a reader. “Why is there never a straight pride parade?” Probably because nobody else in society is publicly ‘celebrating their sexuality.’
This Jerusalem conflict had an interesting ending, but I liked Benedict’s resolution much better.
