Jerusalem Gay Parade Not So Happy

I just read that last Thursday Israel-time, which must have been a week ago, where a religious Jew stabbed three people at a gay pride parade in Jerusalem. This will be a sweet one for the "religiousity critics" who will have an open-wide opportunity to bash the "system" for advocating hatred. Before they do that, however, they will have to convince people that it was a hate crime. More on that in a moment.

Firstly I want to say, "Shame on you" to the Jew that stabbed that other Jew, and maybe to the rabbi's that didn't see it coming. This type of thing cannot be seen as a kiddush Hashem, or sanctification of G-d's name in English, which is only relegated to taking your own life, and only if you are forced with idolatry, adultery, or murder.

According to the Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary, a hate crime is:

1) any of various crimes (as assault or defacement of property) when motivated by hostility to the victim as a member of a group (as one based on color, creed, gender, or sexual orientation)

Unlike in other religious traditions, such as Christianity, homosexuality is not a "cardinal sin," because theologically speaking, there is no greater or lesser violation of the Torah, every violation is equal. Out of all the sexually forbidden relations of the Torah, homosexuality is only one of them.

They are:

Not to have sexual relations with your mother--Leviticus 18:7
Not to have sexual relations with your father's wife--Leviticus 18:8
Not to have sexual relations with your sister--Leviticus 18:9
Not to have sexual relations with your father's wife's daughter (from your father)--Leviticus 18:11
Not to have sexual relations with your son's daughter--Leviticus 18:10
Not to have sexual relations with your daughter--Leviticus 18:10
Not to have sexual relations with your daughter's daughter--Leviticus 18:10
Not to marry a woman and her daughter--Leviticus 18:17
Not to marry a woman and her son's daughter--Leviticus 18:17
Not to marry a with a woman and her daughter's daughter--Leviticus 18:17
Not to have sexual relations with your father's sister--Leviticus 18:12
Not to have sexual relations with your mother's sister--Leviticus 18:13
Not to have sexual relations with your father's brother's wife--Leviticus 18:14
Not to have sexual relations with your son's wife--Leviticus 18:15
Not to have sexual relations with your brother's wife--Leviticus 18:16
Not to have sexual relations with your wife's sister--Leviticus 18:18
A man must not have sexual relations with a beast--Leviticus 18:23
A woman must not have sexual relations with a beast--Leviticus 18:23
Not to have homosexual sexual relations--Leviticus 18:22
Not to have homosexual sexual relations with your father--Leviticus 18:7
Not to have homosexual sexual relations with your father's brother--Leviticus 18:14
Not to have sexual relations with a married woman

The Torah talks about twenty two forbidden sexual relations. However, people that prefer to have sex with their mother, father, brother, sister, brother's childen, or sister's children, do not generally hold incest pride parades. The point is that homosexuality is just the most common out of these acts, and it might just be that many of the other forbidden relationships are not very common today. What this means is that being opposed to homosexuality is not a hate crime, which is what gay rights advocates try to imply. A hate crime is generally committed when a person has a seething dislike for a certain race, sex, creed, gender, or orientation, teetering on the verge of obsessive hatred. Now it takes a certain amount of "gusto" for an unprovoked person to put the blade of a knife into another person's body, but it would be inaccurate to label this an incident of religious fundamentalism for the simple reason that for Orthodox Jews to suffer from a seething hatred of homosexuals is essentially unheard of, it would be much more common to see Palestinians suffering from an endemic hatred of Jews. Oh wait, we do see that.

Furthermore, the article says, "'The ultra-Orthodox waved banners reading, 'Homosexuality is abnormal' and 'Homosexuality is not an incurable disease and may be treated with psychiatric care.'" Clearly the nature of the signs were not inflammatory, such as, say, 'Homosexuals are going to Hell.' The article also says that the "ultra-Orthodox" protestors, some one hundred people, tried to attack the marchers and were forcefully removed from the area.

The point is that this indicent is just a small piece in the puzzle, Israel's secular religion-resistent scene does not take into account that Israel is the religious, spiritual, historic homeland of the Jewish people, and that it should not come to anybody as a surprise when Jews who take these values seriously get offended and upset when other Jews take pride in, to use a graphic term, pissing on these holy sites. Now gay people might not hold these values to be self-evident, but many Jews in Israel, the Holy Land, do, and their feelings have to be respected just like anybody else.

Another point. Is Tel-Aviv not a more appropriate place for such a parade? Why must homosexuals flaunt their lifestyle in Jerusalem, unless I am mistaken, maybe they are trying to show the Jewish world that "in-your-face" gay people also value the religious traditions of the Torah. Stabbing is wrong, but gay people have to realize that they live in a world where there are people who hold religious and spiritual beliefs, many of which run very deep, and to flaunt a gay parade in the middle of Jerusalem, the physical center of that religious and spiritual tradition, is a major insult to the people who hold those beliefs. Let's be honest, how many yeshiva bachurs wake up in the morning and say, "Let's go find us some faggots?" Fanaticism is a two-sided coin.