This is so stupid it's almost funny. Almost.
The Shin Bet security service ordered the Jerusalem Municipality to increase its security detail around Mayor Uri Lupoliansky after threats were received on his life for allowing today's Jerusalem Pride Parade in the capital. A leading ultra-Orthodox rabbi said that as a punishment, homosexuals would "in their next reincarnation, come back as rabbits and bunnies."
Personally, I can think of a lot of things worse than coming back as a rabbit or a bunny. Like, for instance, coming back as a closed-minded, hateful bigot who can't tolerate differences in others. No, we're certainly not immune.
Jerusalem's hosting of the annual Gay Parade has caused controversy in the city with members of the ultra-Orthodox community trying to stop the celebration, calling participants names and claiming that their actions are against God's laws.
In the city's ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods. signs have been posted and pamphlets have been distributed, warning children to stay away from the "sinners" and not walk near the streets where the parade is to go through. A recent gay parade in the city was called an "abomination."
Attention, Madonna!
Kabbalah expert Rabbi David Batzri, who recently blew shofars at an IDF tank base to ward off the "evil eye," attacked the gay community in his weekly lecture, media sources reported.
"There is no place in the Holy City for this kind of procession," he said, according to a ynet report. Batzri called for the establishment of hostels to care for youths who had fallen under the spell of "this group of obscenities," and said that homosexuals should be imprisoned.
This kind of "Kabbalah expert," we can do without. Anyway, kol hakavod to Jerusalem's ultra-Orthodox mayor, who, while expressing some of the same hateful rhetoric, has seen fit at his own peril to allow the parade to go forward.
Shabbat Shalom.
