Members of Jerusalem’s Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender community and their supporters marched in Jerusalem on Thursday afternoon, and ultra-Orthodox Jews staged a protest from a safe distance in what has become an annual test of strength, according to the LA Times.

The gay community sees itself as deprived of full recognition, equality and rights. Ultra-Orthodox Jews reject homosexuality as depravity.

Posters signed by critical rabbinical authorities, sanctimonious eye-rolling on both sides, the inevitable petition to the supreme court, as well as the expected ruling in favor — everyone knows the drill.

In part, the gay issue taps into existing tensions in Israel between religious and secular and right- vs. left-wing politics, and the whole thing is often perceived as a package deal. Not surprisingly, protesters against the parade included Itamar Ben-Gvir, a career activist whose name is in the notebook of any reporter who ever covered a right-wing demonstration in Israel.

Last year, the city suffered $100,000 in damages after thousands of religious protesters rioted, breaking street lamps, road signs and traffic lights and setting garbage dumpsters ablaze. A protester had stabbed several participants a few years ago and hugely disproportionate numbers of police had been deployed.

This year, tensions were lower. A religious demonstration called last week had a poor turnout, explained by some as reluctance to give the parade any free publicity.

Jerusalem’s Open House for Pride and Tolerance executive director, Yonatan Gher, attributed the relative quiet to a lot of hard work and behind-the-scenes contacts. “This is the first time Jerusalem is calm on the morning of the gay pride parade,” he told Israel radio Thursday morning, adding that when community members greet each other with a “chag sameach,” a happy holiday, they finally will be reflecting reality rather than expressing a wish. The Open House won an award in Brazil this year for operating a gay organization in spite of social opposition.

Several legislative attempts to protect Jerusalem from “religiously insensitive” events have been made. Why can the city protect a 120-year-old building but not a tradition of thousands of years, religious lawmakers ask.

Saar Netanel, Jerusalem city council member and one of the city’s gay community leaders, explained that the Jerusalem parade is very different from its more provocative and extroverted Tel-Aviv counterpart. It is “simply a demonstration in favor of tolerance and for all people, whether religious, secular, gay, straight, Palestinian” or whatever.

But why in Jerusalem? Isn’t this city complicated enough, ask many people, including supporters. Why not, Netanel answers. “Jerusalem is the capital, home to the institutions entrusted with ensuring democracy…if we can’t hold such a parade in Jerusalem, what does it say about us and Israeli society?”

Gays cannot marry in Israel but legal precedents have been set for registering gay couples wed abroad, as well as on a range of issues including adoption, inheritance, pre-nuptial agreements and child support. The organization New Family estimates about 18,000 same-sex households are in Israel.

 (Last Year’s Parade)

According to the Jerusalem Post, Jerusalem’s controversial gay pride parade, which has repeatedly riled religious and traditional city residents, is scheduled to take place in the city next week, with haredi opponents deciding to avoid public protests in an effort to minimize the publicity of the event, organizers and opponents of the event said Tuesday. The annual event, which has been the source of bitter debate and violence in the past, is slated to take place through the streets of central Jerusalem next Thursday.

The march, which is organized by Jerusalem’s small Gay and Lesbian Center, has repeatedly received the strong backing of Israel’s High Court of Justice over the vehement opposition of the haredi and religious public as well as Christian and Muslim religious leaders who view such a parade as an abomination and an anathema to core Biblical values.

Supporters of the parade counter that freedom of speech enables them to hold the event in Jerusalem, as a symbol of tolerance and pluralism, even if theirs is the view of the minority of residents in the city. ”The march is a test-case for democracy and for the ability to accept the other,” said Yonatan Gher, executive director of Jerusalem’s Open House which is organizing the event.

Gher said that organizers were encountering “very good cooperation” from both the city and police this year to the “different atmosphere” among the opponents of the march, adding that the final approval of the parade’s route was expected in the coming days.

In an effort to minimize publicity of the event, the vehemently anti-Zionist Eda Haredit has decided to refrain from demonstrating against the parade, a move which is expected to greatly reduce friction over the march. ”We prefer to concentrate on sanctifying God’s name, not attacking those who desecrate it,” said an official in the organization.

The Eda Haredit, which brings together some of the most zealously conservative, anti-Zionist groups in Judaism, refuses to accept money from the state of Israel, which, they believe, represents a rebellion against God’s wish that the Jewish people remain without sovereignty until the coming of the Messiah.

The city’s Gay and Lesbian Center, which is heavily funded by American Jewish federations, has held five previous gay parades in the city. A 2005 gay parade in Jerusalem ended in violence when a haredi man stabbed three participants.  

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Thousands of people attended the tenth annual Gay Pride Parade in Tel Aviv Friday, to celebrate the gay community’s struggle for equality and to christen the center for the gay community situated in the city’s Meir park (Gan Meir), according to Haaretz. 

“The center symbolizes an amazing turning point in the history of the gay community, and our activities will now have fertile ground from which to grow and flourish,” Army Radio quoted one of the parade participants as saying. 

The Tel Aviv municipality donated NIS 250,000 for the event, which was scheduled to commence at 12 P.M. at Gan Meir. Unlike similar events in the more religious capital of Jerusalem, which have sparked bitter right-wing protests and violent demonstrations, the Tel Aviv parade faced little resistance. “The parade here is different from the one in Jerusalem,” Army Radio quoted another parade participant. “Here, we celebrate the freedom and rights that we have - it’s a festival, a happening, it’s a joy. In Jerusalem, it’s simply a demonstration for human rights.” 

Several confrontations did take place however. Army Radio reported that a handful of extreme right-wing activists confronted the revelers holding signs reading “Animals - you have nothing to be proud of.” Shas Party Chairman Eli Yishai also voiced his objection to the parade in a letter addressed to the prime minister and the police commissioner, saying the parade will include “acts of abomination” and that it should be stopped. 

Army Radio quoted Meretz Parliamentarian Zahava Gal-On’s response to Yishai’s efforts, saying “their ignorance and dark beliefs take as back to the Middle Ages. It is intolerable that the religious and Haredis tell us what to believe in and how to live. Now they’re trying to forbid the gay community from parading in the streets.” 

The Khalleej Times reports that the Dubai police has held a seminar on the dangers of transgenderism on society. The seminar was part of a one-week awareness campaign against transvestism, “Preserve our social values.’

Adel Al  Marzouki, Head of Guidance at Islamic Affairs and Charitable Work, said the phenomenon of transgender dressing has increased among Emirati youth studying in high schools and colleges, especially over the past five years, due to lack of religious awareness, he said.

Addressing the seminar, Al Marzouki said 10 years ago, one could find only one or two transvestite students in a school, but now there would be at least 10 such students in each school.

He attributed this trend to the lack of parental attention where small children are left in unsupervised care of housemaids, broken homes and working parents. He also blamed the media and movies, some of which encourage the phenomenon in the UAE society. 

Al Marzouki warned people, particularly the youth, about the dangers of transgender dressing and its impact on the society and Islam. He pointed out all religious books have deemed sodomy and homosexuality immoral and it’s against human nature. All those who practise homosexuality are violating the teachings of the holy books.

(Gay Iran Teens Public Murder)

20-year-old, Iranian Mehdi Kazemi has been granted asylum by British authorities.

For two years, the young gay Iranian has been seeking refuge status in the UK claiming he would be killed if returned to his homeland. In a letter from the Border and Immigration Agency of the Home Office in England, Kazemi was notified that his asylum request had now been granted. 

The decision comes only days after Human Rights Watch named the UK’s Home Office to its annual ‘Hall of Shame’. The rights group blasted the government agency for “failing to implement its human rights responsibilities” by deporting queer people to places where they risk torture and serious abuse. 

Homosexual acts are illegal in Iran. Iran is one of 7 countries where homosexual acts potentially end in death. After Kazemi moved to the UK in 2005, his boyfriend was arrested by Iranian state police and reportedly executed for the crime of sodomy.

Kazemi requested asylum in the UK, but when his application was turned down, he fled to the Netherlands. Dutch authorities examined his refugee case in early March and decided to send him back to the UK. British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith announced Mar 13 that Kazemi would be granted a temporary reprieve from deportation, while the agency reviewed his refugee claim.

Kazemi’s case generated much attention, including a rally in March. More than 120 people gathered in London, demanding that Kazemi be granted refugee status. Still, activists warn that the Home Office continues to downplay the threat to gays and lesbians facing deportation.

Gay rights activist Peter Tatchell says there is a “homophobic and transphobic bias” in the asylum system.

“The government seems more interested in cutting asylum numbers than in ensuring fairness and justice for LGBT refugees who have fled arrest, imprisonment, torture, vigilante attacks and attempts to kill them,” he said at an International Day Against Homophobia event on May 16.

Source: Xtra

Arsham Parsi, founder of the Iranian Queer Organization, talks with Lindsay Campbell on MobLogic.TV about gay life in Iran, and how Google made him realize that being gay is normal. 

From Parsi’s website:

Arsham Parsi was born on 20 September, 1980, in Shiraz, Iran. After completing his basic education, he wanted to continue studying veterinary medicine at university; however, financial pressures forced him to stop his studies.

While living in Shiraz and after coming to terms with his sexual identity, Arsham began to do advocacy work for the queer community. Part of this work consisted of helping a doctor and his research assistants in a study of HIV in the local queer community. His advocacy work earned him the attention of the Iranian authorities, and Arsham was forced to flee Iran on 5 March, 2005. His train took him first to Turkey, where he was able to register as a refugee at the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Ankara. Ashram was one of the fortunate few whose case was actually accepted by the Commissioner. Three months after arriving in Turkey his case was accepted, and two months later he was invited to Canadian Embassy in Ankara and eight months later he was arrived in Canada.

A founding member of IRanian Queer Organization-IRQO, Arsham began working for the advancement of civil rights for lesbians and gays in 2001. In 2003, he helped organize a Yahoo chat group for gay Iranians. 

Though now living safely in a democratic country, Arsham still considers himself Iranian and never forgets that he is in exile for sexual orientation. He considers this a big responsibility. Arsham wants to return to a democratic, open Iran, and is working actively to make that dream a reality. 

(Source)

The MEMRI blog reports that a new Egyptian queer organization called “The Lovers “has garnered 600 members in the first two weeks of its existence. 

Organization members are calling on the government to recognize their rights, to appoint a minister in charge of their affairs, and to permit them to establish a party.

The organization’s head said that homosexual relations are illegal in Egypt even though the gay community numbers over 100,000.

(source)

An Israeli Family Court judge turned down a request by a man for a restraining order against an ex-partner since Israel’s family and domestic violence laws do not apply to homosexual partnerships. 

The complainant told the court that the former lover, a younger man who had lived in his house for two years, was abusing him psychologically. He argued that as a common-law partner, he was entitled to the protection of the family court. 

In his defense response, the former partner refused to acknowledge the common-law status, arguing that he had never changed his permanent address nor did he contribute financially to the upkeep of the household. 

From Haaretz:

“The complainant told the court that the problems began when he told his partner that he wanted to end the relationship. He said the former lover began making calls to his family and to his new partner and claimed that the older man had raped him. 

“The complainant maintained also that his former lover talked to a reporter about their relationship and then sent a fax to the complainant’s work colleagues at work containing the resulting published article. The complainant claimed that his former lover’s behavior constituted harassment and abuse because it undermined his social status and his workplace status as well as harming his children and current partner. 

“But the judge, Dr. Gershon German, ruled that the request does not meet the criteria of the law because the parties do not meet the requirements for family members or for common-law spouses.”

Sketch of monument honoring queer victims of holocaust

Ynet reports that Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai announced that Meir Garden in Tel Aviv is to be the site of a monument honoring tens of thousands of gay victims of Nazi persecution during World War II.

The report said, ”A quarter of a million homosexuals were persecuted during the Holocaust, and tens of thousands were murdered because the Nazi Party believed their sexual preference to be deviant. In the concentration camps in which they were imprisoned, gay men were forced to wear a pink triangle while lesbian women wore a black patch. Plans for the monument’s erection were initiated by Itai Pinkas, one of the homosexual community leaders and a member of the Tel Aviv Municipality City Council, who serves as the mayor’s advisor in matters of the gay community. The monument is to be the first in Israel to commemorate these victims, though four of its kind exist worldwide, in Sydney, Copenhagen, Berlin, and Amsterdam. It has been designed as an iron triangle, on which the victims’ names are to be inscribed.”

Equality Forum, a Queer advocacy organization, requested this week from Senators Clinton, Obama, and McCain to contact England’s Prime Minister concerning Britain’s deportation of GLBT Iranians back to their home country. According to the Equality Forum executive director Malcolm Lazin, deportation is essentially a death sentence, reported the Southern Voice. 

Illinois Senator and Democratic Presidential Nominee front-runner, Barack Obama, issued a statement soon after the request. The statement said Obama “believes that the United States and countries around the world have both a legal and a moral obligation to protect victims of persecution based on sexual orientation or gender identity. Under an Obama administration, the United States will lead by setting a strong example, which includes making clear that asylum for persecuted people is a bedrock principle of American and international law. Moreover, Obama will exert diplomatic pressure and employ other foreign policy tools to encourage other nations to address human rights abuses and atrocities committed against LGBT men and women.”

A day later, the Clinton team addressed Equality Forum’s request, ”The campaign has discussed this issue with the U.K. government. We were encouraged to learn that the deportation order for Mr. Kazemi has been deferred and is now under review.”

The Republican nominee, Ariz. Sen. John McCain, did not respond to Equality Forum’s concerns.

Source: EdgeBoston