On March 30 an unusual gathering of Jewish, Muslim and Christian clerics sat shoulder to shoulder at a Jerusalem press conference.
In a rare, almost unheard-of moment of solidarity, the representatives of the city's three major religions - three chief rabbis, a Latin patriarch, an Armenian bishop, a Greek Orthodox archbishop and two top Muslim sheikhs - denounced what they all deem to be a terrible threat looming over Jerusalem.
This threat, however, is neither a terrorist bombing nor a catastrophe of biblical proportions. It is the World Pride parade, scheduled in Jerusalem for two weeks in August, a huge festival expected to attract thousands of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender participants.
Organized by the Jerusalem Open House, a groundbreaking les-bi-gay organization in Jerusalem, the organizers believe that it will "bring a message of unity and reconciliation to people troubled by conflict".
The World Pride festival is the culmination of decades of national gay pride events in countries across the globe, including the famous annual parades in San Francisco, Berlin and Sydney. Due to these events' immense popularity the founders decided to shift to a global level.
The first World Pride festival was held in Rome in 2000, where, despite staunch objections by the Vatican, tens of thousands of people attended two weeks of workshops, events, films, lectures and the signature parade. It is no accident, then, that the second such event has moved from Rome to Jerusalem.
"It's important to take this message out onto the streets in places where the gay community has traditionally not felt welcome," says Noa Sattath, chairperson of the Jerusalem Open House, "so it's incredibly significant that the first event was in Rome and the second in Jerusalem. And in 2010," she jokes, "we're taking World Pride to Mecca!"
Her views are echoed by Hagai El-Ad, executive director of the Open House, who believes that the first World Pride in Rome "made an even stronger statement about God's love for all people, regardless of their sexual orientation", and that the same will be achieved in Jerusalem.
However, the clerics at last week's press conference do not agree.
"Making this parade," said Rabbi Yehuda Levine of the Rabbinical Alliance of America, "would not only be an offense, but a provocation to the Jews, Christians and Muslims of Jerusalem and all the world". The festival, he went on, would constitute the "spiritual rape of the Holy City".
Moreover, objections to the festival have now spread outside of Israel, to the US, where Californian Pastor Leo Giovinetti recently launched a petition to attempt to pressure the Israeli ministry of tourism and Jerusalem municipality into canceling the event.
"It has been the historic position of each of these faiths [Judaism, Christianity and Islam] that homosexuality is an abomination to the one true God," he said at a press conference announcing the initiative.
Giovinetti hopes to collect 1 million signatures from Jews and Christians across the world, as well as from his own Evangelical congregations at the Mission Valley Christian Fellowship home.
The Jerusalem Open House, however, is not worried or intimidated by this prospect.
"Jerusalem is a very segregated city," says Sattath, "and over time we have become one of the few points of contact between all the different groups: secular and religious; Jewish, Christian and Muslim; Israeli and Palestinian; gay and straight."
Moreover, the Open House organization has crossed an important barrier to become the only group in the world to provide information on gay/lesbian/bi-sexual/transgender in Arabic. It also runs an outreach program, which has succeeded in breaking the taboo attached to homosexuality in the Palestinian community.
"When we begun the program, we had trouble even finding three Palestinians to attend our events," recalled Sattath, "Now we have hundreds from throughout the Occupied Territories and East Jerusalem and they're also extremely excited about the festival."
And they are not the only group pleased to see the festival coming to Israel. Many in Israel's tourist industry as well as members of Israel's thriving gay community welcome the festival.
"The response has been incredible, both within Israel and abroad. We even have gay and lesbian churches and synagogues coming to the festival: all kinds of people from all over the world." says Sattath.
Despite clerical objections it seems that this year's Jerusalem World Pride is unstoppable. In a recent statement Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski said that public events are licensed by the police, and not by the City Hall, so he has no say in the matter.
The police, says Sattath, are on excellent terms with the Open House, having worked closely with them in previous years to organize the phenomenally successful Jerusalem Pride and 2002 Love Without Borders events. All of these went ahead, undeterred by protests, and World Pride will do the same.
Jerusalem gay pride festival upsets clerics
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