Nothing to Be Proud of: Madrid’s Gay Pride Parade Bans Israel
While a few other countries in the Middle East — Jordan, Iraq, Cyprus, and Turkey (for now) — do not criminalize homosexuality, Israel is the only country in the region where gays are protected by anti-discrimination laws. It is also the only country to recognize same-sex marriages performed abroad, allowing foreign partners to apply for and receive residency permits and allowing gay spouses to receive benefits and pensions. Gay partners in Tel Aviv are essentially common-law spouses. In a country where everyone serves in the military, a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy is non-existent. Openly gay soldiers serve in all branches of the Israeli Defense Forces.
There are gay pride festivals held in cities across Israel. Numerous politicians, artists, and other public figures are openly gay, and gay and lesbian advocacy organizations are plentiful and vocal in standing up for the rights of homosexual Israelis.
Also apparently of no interest to the Madrid organizers is that the Israeli gay community does what it can to support homosexual Palestinians.
All three organizations that advocate and support homosexual Palestinians are headquartered in Israel. On an individual level, the Israeli gay community often hides gay Palestinians from the Israeli authorities, for fear that they will be sent back to their home communities where they are ostracized and threatened for their sexual preferences. From the website GlobalGayz.com:
Since Palestine is a very homophobic culture many Palestinian gays and lesbians are forced against their cultural and religious will to hide in Israel where homosexuality is much more acceptable and, indeed, protected.
Like their counterparts worldwide, the Israeli gay community is one of the most progressive and left-wing in the country. One Israeli gay rights organization, Black Laundry, describes itself as “a direct action group of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgenders, and others against the occupation and for social justice.”
But neither Israel’s exemplary record on gay issues nor the hostility towards homosexuals by Hamas and its supporters seems to have made any impression on the gay Spaniards. What the head of the Madrid Gay Collective, which organizes the parade, told the Spanish publication Libertad Digital (Spanish link) contradicted any excuse of security concerns, painting the decision in clearly political colors. He said that Israelis — including the gay community — are “the executioners and now they want to play the victim.”
Only one thing can be said in their defense. Sadly, their claim that there would need to be extra security to protect the Israeli representatives is truly justified in today’s Spain, and not a mere excuse. No event that publicly includes Israel appears to be safe these days.
On Tuesday, a renewable energy conference sponsored by the Spain-Israel Chamber of Commerce was interrupted when 200 protestors burst into the hall and accosted three Israeli businessmen:
According to Spanish media, the organizers, who feared acts of protest over last week’s deadly Israeli commando raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla, changed the conference’s venue at the last minute. However, the activists discovered the new location and stormed in while chanting, “Murderers, murderers. Get out of Gaza”, and “Freedom to the Palestinian people.”
Madrid police were alerted to the scene and escorted the Israeli businessmen out of the university. The protesters threw stones, paint, and other objects at the police patrol cars as they were heading out of the institution. One of the Israelis, Emefcy CEO Eytan Levy, was hit by a rock that shattered the windshield of one of the police vehicles. Levy was treated at the scene but asked not to be evacuated to a hospital. Madrid police launched an investigation into the incident, but no arrests have been made as of yet.
Most of the rioters were Muslim, police said.
Spanish, Muslim, or both, the rioters accomplished their mission — the conference was canceled. Together with the withdrawal of the invitation to the parade, it was a double victory for Spain’s Israel-hatred community.
This is hypocrisy at his best.
But a few comments:
1. Israel does not recognize same-sex marriages carried abroad. The Ministry of Interior does not write them as married in Israel and never will.
2. Tel Aviv is very open to gays, maybe Eilat also. But that’s all. Israelis don’t like gays very much. It is the antithesis of what is being Israeli and Jewish. Israel is a very “family values” oriented country. Israelis are not US Jews, they are not liberals. And the gay organizations have caused a lot of damages to themselves by wanting to parade in Jerusalem against the will of 90% of the local population.
But on the overall, gays are free to do what they want and are protected and enjoy the same kind of freedom than in any western country.
I completely disagree that “Israelis dont like gays much”.
If you mean religious Israelis, then right, like anywhere else in the world.
But the secular majority have no problems with gays. Some leading pop icons are openly gay, even the military is renouned for accepting gay soldiers.
To the point though, I don’t understand the politization of this parade? How are Israeli LGBT responsible for their goverment’s actions? What IS this about?
The issue of gays in the military is a strictly American issue. No armies in the western world has any problem with gay soldiers. Nobody cares about it and Israel behaves exactly like other countries.
Regarding who loves gays – believe me, I am Israeli, and even secular Israelis and not just religious and traditionalists (a big group usually forgotten) do not like them very much. The openly gay pop icons are tolerated because they are pop icons and nobody expect them to be normal people. It’s part of the package. But most people have prejudices against homosexuals, some strong some light. Like everywhere else. Israelis are family oriented and don’t like the things that challenge or attack these values.
Brazil is “western world” and homosexuality is forbidden in Military Forces. I don’t know about other latin american countries, but I believe that most countries have similar restrictions .
Brazil is certainly not part of the Western world.
Here is a link from Wikipedia on the issue:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_orientation_and_military_service
The organizers of this parade should leave politics out. Since they want to ban the ISraelis from coming to this then they must also ban those in other countries as well. Why not ban the Saudis too? They produce the oil and they have a pass on this. There are no gays in the Muslim countries since homosexuality is a crime punishable by death. This is hyprcrisy at its very finest. Why is one tiny country like Israel banned from sending a representative to this event? There are far worse countries who do far worse things. i guess being anti-semitic is the in thing to do.
“The organizers of this parade should leave politics out.”
—————————-
However, the situation is profoundly politicized. As long as the radicals sneer
when the differences between men and women are accepted more by straight people
than by homosexuals, the matter is far from concluded.
All the ‘love-fest’ talk aside, I hardly think that Spain’s disinvite to TA gay floaters is an issue worth getting all excited about. While it is certainly the case that Israel is the only sea of tolerance in an otherwise intolerant Middle East, the poster child of this issue should hardly be focused on gays.
Israel is desperate to be seen as more free, more western than most other democratic countries. It is Israel’s race to the finish line of,’see how tolerant we are’, which may very well be its undoing.
I am convinced this mindless quest has been a fool’s errand,hardly garnering any brownie points, and surely a waste of precious resources needed to secure our national interest.
To be sure, all their efforts would result in alot more payback if Israel’s elitists were to urgently switch tack, thus heralding the following facts – that Arabs have more freedom in Israel than in ANY Arab/Muslim country;that they are free to incite against the majority public from the halls of the Knesset; and that they have carte blanche to visit enemy states without a majority backlash against them.Freedom at its zenith.
This is a flotilla which Israel’s tourism ministry should be touting, they can call it -’Israel’s flotilla of fools, welcoming all subversives to jump on board’!
Maybe the folks in Israel should read the Torah before determining who should be their ambassadors.
Maybe it’s time Israel started to support the Basque ETA, after all, unlike the so called “palestinians,” whose identity was fabricated by Nasser in the 1960s, the Basque have been living in their own- now Spanish-Castillian occupied- country since prehistoric times! If anyone deserves freedom and social justice it is the Basque nation!
Perhaps Israel should allow the Basque separatists to establish an embassy in Jerusalem? That would teach the Spaniards a lesson!
ETA no. They’ve acted in a sufficiently monstrous way to be reviled amongst the Basques themselves, and have likely put a damper on Basque independence by their very existance.
Somebody else, on the other hand, may well be a good choice.
Stupid beyond measure. ETA is allied with the Islamists: there are strong suspicions they provided technical cooperation for the Madrid bombings, several high-ranking ETA members have called for closer ties with them and more than one has converted to Islam. And tehy hate Israel like 99.9% of Spain’s left.
I disagree with Benjamin’s take on Israel’s attitude toward gays, the killing at a gay club last year notwithstanding, I find the secular half of Israeli society extremely accepting of gays, far more than the US, for example. Last year there was a gay member of Knesset which news was greeted without so much as a yawn. One of the most popular singers of all time in Israel is openly lesbian and no one cares. ALL of Israeli society is extremely pro-natalist, so gays who choose to live in more traditional family units and have children (fertility treatments to do so are FREE in Israel up to three children, and there are groups in the major cities to help arrangement men and women who want to have children in non-traditional relationships) are far more accepted than those who don’t conform to that norm. Because marriage comes under the auspices of religious authorities in Israel, which is controlled by an extreme form of Orthodoxy, there’s not much hope for same sex marriage catching on any time soon, but there again, Israeli secular society is more tolerant of non-traditional partnering of all different kinds than I fiind in the US.
Israeli secular society is not just Tel Aviv where gays enjoy a sea of tolerance and freedom on SF levels. And seculars are a minority in the country. Only 42% of Jews identify as seculars according to the last polls. The rest are haredim (the ultra-orthodox), religious -zionists, and traditionalists. They are the majority and will be even more so as they have a higher birth rate than secular Jews (and than Arabs by the way).
Now you also need to understand that non-Americans, Israelis, Europeans etc… don’t react always according to US way of behaving. Let’s take the abortion issue. This is a political and social issue in the US. Not in Israel. Many many people oppose abortion in Israel. But most of them do not see it as a political or important issue worth fighting for it. Same with Nizan Horowicz, the gay Knesset member – first he was a more or less famous and popular, nice-guy journalist before becoming a MK and everybody knew he was gay ; and Meretz is a far left party with a “liberal” (in the US meaning) agenda so you would expect that they have a gay member. By the way, you see, the liberal oriented party just got 2% of the votes.
I understand Iran will have a float in the parade. It will feature a construction crane with a gay man hung from it, while a band plays Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit.”
Last year there was a poll in Euorpe asking who was to blame for the economic crisis. By far the most anti-semitic responses came from Spain. Over 75% of those polled blamed everything on the Jews. Also this is the same Spain that elected an anti-American, anti-semitic prime minister to appease the Moslems after that terrible train terror attack that killed 200 people. Spain is nothing more than an anti-Semitic and anti-American anachronism.
In most of Europe the Shoah acted as a (at least temporary) purge against antisemitism as many antisemites ended thinking that killing people and specially killing new borns was going too far. Also antisemitism became linked to nazism and collaboration.
But Spain stood neutral, wasn’t involved in the Shoah and made less concession to Nazi Germany than say Sweden so this purge didn’t happen there.
About Spain Socialists don’t let their name deceive you: it is not a social democrat party like in German or France. Its tradition is more akin to a Communist Party (ie dictatorship and political murder) but without the subordination to Moscow. It was only in the seventies that it converted to democracy but Zapatero is a step back and he is trying to rehabilitate the former Socialist Party alonside with demonizing the Constitutional opposition and doing his best to increase tension who has reached alarmingly-high levels.
Also you have to remind atht Spain (like most of europen countries) is not a democracy (power of the people): arelatively unknow Zapatero was elected by the Socialist Party (100,000 people top) whose moral was at historically low levels after Aznar had got absolute majority. The people have no poer over who will a Party’s candidate or what will be the political line. They only can vote for a Party and their betters (that is the Party) decides who will rule and how.
And Zapatero hate Spain nearly as much as Oabama hates the United States.
Leftism uber alles.
The feminist movement, far more popular than gay liberation, has been captive to leftist politics and rendered ineffectual for years. The unlikely possibility that Roe vs Wade might be overturned is the only issue that animates American feminists. The routine and entirely ordinary enslavement and torture of millions of Muslim women takes second place to leftist reverence for the quaint traditions of primitive “native” cultures.
The Torah does not have the secular constraints of fashionable politics. Conservative, Hassidic, and other non-secular Jews are not exactly perturbed by activities on or over the fringe of apostasy.
The relegation of traditional values to the secular scrap-heap means only that the Light of Life is less bright. Following fashion has always been the easy way, the self-centred way, the arrogant way, the “me first” way – and it always will be – this is what relative morality should teach you; but most folks are too involved in their own pursuits to find this meaning.
Spain cancels? Who cares? It is an inconvenience within the secular morality group, about which the majority of us in the world who live our lives for something other than our own aggrandisement could care less. That we lose the life that those people represent is sad, but it is their choice, not ours. Thus is part of the pain that comes with free-will.
Any word yet on what the delegations from Gaza, Iran, and Saudi Arabia are planning on doing?
What, if any, objections have been raised by our esteemed Ambassador in Madrid, Obama appointee, Alan Solomont, former President of the Boston Combined Jewish Philanthropies?
The Spanish Gay lobby is overtaken by the Socialist Party. There are some Gay associations who are not an extension of the Government, like AMIGOS, but they are constantly put down by the infiltrated political commissioners. This is not a Gay Parade anymore, but a Socialist Party agitprop rally. Not only the Israel representatives are banned, but all the gays who have signified themselves as conservative or even the ones who show certain amount of criticism with the Socialist Party. Among the organizers the best known is Pedro Zerolo, who holds a hight position in Socialist Party. You must know that the PM Zapatero was quite fond of posing for the press sporting the Palestinian terrorist towel, and has not lost a single chance for insulting Israel or Jews. He is the greatest (and possibly the only one) supporter for Turkey joining the UE. He openly supports Venezuela and Bolivia, even when they have nationalized Spanish companies based there without any compensation, and he stands for Morocco, even if its King claims Spanish territories, and organize illegal Muslim aliens for breaking into Spain. Considering that, I can’t say this rudeness to Israel surprises me.
Two days ago, in Autónoma University campus, there was a antisemitic raid against two scientists from Israel. They were attacked by leftwingers in the Hitlerjugend style. The police couldn’t move a finger because in Spain they need explicit permission from the Rector of the university for doing anything inside the campus, and the University authorities are leftwing themselves. (The former Rector of that University is now a Minister in the Socialist Government. He achieved his position in the University by promoting alcoholic parties for every thursday in the campus for winning students affection… and votes.) After the Government has introduced communist indoctrination in anticapitalism and antisemitism in schools, and leftwinger millionaires in their tv and press, that was only a matter of time.
5. Gene
I’m Spaniard myself, and I disagree completely with the islamofascism supporters.
Basque country is an occupied by Spain in the same way as England is occupied by Great Britain. As a matter of fact, Spanish language was probably in origin the latin dialect spoken by Basques. Furthermore, the county of Castilla, before it was a Kingdom included Basque lands. The Basque country was Castilla even before than Madrid was. The separatists from there, claim also Navarra, that was a Kingdom in its right, and whose people don’t support at all separatism. Anyway, if the Basques want to remain Spanish, what marxist murders think means nothing. Maybe you like the old Lenini revolution style, but most of the people in Basque Country like democracy (even if they don’t dare to say it loud, but hey, that’s the cool thing of your vote being secret, just the opposite as ETA terorist, who would prefer hands up, in the good old Politburo style.) Nowadays, the Basques have a tax system of their own, meaning that they pay less than the rest of Spain and get more. The voting system is quite a disadvantage for the so-called invaders… The vote of a Basque is worth 1.5 to 2 average Spanish vote. It’s a weird colonialism, don’t think so? Do you know that 20% of Basques had to leave the land of their ancestors for avoiding ETA terror, or that nobody can talk freely of politics because they and their families would be abused, their properties vandalized or even killed? I would like to see you talking freely as you can do in other part of Spain, and since then, checking under your car everyday for the rest of your life. The fact that ETA is in good terms with Islamic terrorism, maybe can be also a handicap for your idea.
No surprises here. No reason to condemn.
As a gay man myself (Norwegian), I am horrified at this betrayal of the only country in the Middle East where it is possible to have one’s sexual life be an actual private citizen affair.
In a country that criminalizes gays, or places legal disabilities on us, our sexual life is no longer what it ought to be, namely..a private citizen affair.
For the record, I don’t think it is right, either, as it is in Norway, that it is criminal for an employer to refuse to hire a man like me solely on account of my orientation.
He has a right to be a bigot, and refuse me a job on such silly grounds, but he hasn’t got any “right” to have any customers, so if I, through non-violent, legal means can push him out of business, I would do so.
In the “gay movement” thing I see two groups: the gays themselves and people who want to use them as political peons.
I believe most gays just want to live their lives. They want to easily share their assets, pay their taxes together and chose who will take care of them in case of disability.
But there are people who don’t care about gays. What they want is use the gays to attack other groups, like christians. They support same sex marriage only because it’s a sacred issue to the christians. These are the same people who say that marriage is a “failed institution”.
They showed their faces now. As I said, they don’t care about gays. They don’t care about what the palestians gays are going through. When gays are not useful anymore, they simply throw them away.
Although am a christian and I disagree with homosexuality I don’t have any issues with gays trying to get what they think it’s right. I disagree with a lot of people whom I care about. People are more than their sex orientation.
Best regards from Brazil.
“People are more than their sex orientation.”
Correct.
Except, that is, for people who get into their brains to make a public, political affair out of it, for example by criminalizing consensual behaviour between adults.
Ah Spain, cowardly Spain, hypocritical Spain, where is your national hero Don Quixote when you need him ?
“Gays” are at the forefront of Jew hatred, everywhere.
I think Spain is doing Israel a favor, in a roundabout sort of way.
#17 is correct, traditional Jewish values do not condone and in fact abhor the ‘gay’ lifestyle behavior, while at the same time recognizing and preserving the civil rights of those whose behavior is found detestable in the Torah. Judaism doesn’t ‘hate’ the gay man or woman, we don’t hang them or behead them. But the behavior is considered an abomination.
A more important issue, imo, is that kosher shechita is now banned in Sweden, Iceland, New Zealand and Norway.
Judaism doesn’t “hate” the gay man or woman…
No, but the gay man or woman hates Judaism. That was the point of my post. Scratch a gay and just beneath his oh so tolerant shtick is virulent hatred of the Jew.
Allison: most gay men and women with exception of Liz Chaney and the log cabin repuplicans are liberls and peace loving and I assume
the same thing about Israeli gays and lesbians, peace loving and
therfore they do not support the murderous policies of the
Israeli government and should have been
allowed to participate.. they need a better PR.
the israeli government does not give a S.. about their own
citizens as you can see by their actions. istead of moaning
and groaning, think about it.
I thought that sexual preferences have nothing to do with common sense, and I know gay people who can support this statement and refute yours. Maybe I’m wrong and there is a link that I missed between who you choose to sleep with and being a self-hating leftwinger hippy, though.
Peace loving homosexuals. Interesting. A grandmother, just outside of Detroit was killed by her granddaughter and the female the granddaughter was involved with in a homosexual relationship.
Sparta was profoundly homosexual because a lover would fight harder for his lover than for a friend.
As long as the positive aspects of the differences between men and women are sneered at by homosexuals, they display a cultural poverty just like we see expressed here: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/world/Ayaan+Hirsi+Islam+brutally+candid+apostate/3129524/story.html
Bill Perron
We’ve hired him as Prime Minister. A completely nuts guy, who lives in a fantasy world of his own, and thinks he’s making justice, when he is in fact just harassing sane and honest people. I would rather think as a national hero of somebody like Don Pelayo, who began the Reconquista, or Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, called “Cid” by the Moors, meaning Lord, who won his last battle against the Moors after his dead, scaring the s… out of them when they saw him coming out of the castle riding his horse. And when I say “I rather think” I mean “think”. If some social suicidal dares to say something like that aloud, would be branded as a fascist neonazi criminal racist forever. Well, supporting Israel, Freedom or EEUU would have identical effects. So do criticising a Mosque in your neighbourhood, Latinamerican gangs, the Socialist Party, Islam or Obama.
Mind that Spain is ruled by ultraleftwingers, who had indoctrinated the population with their bs, to a point that the safest way to get your ass kicked in Spain, is to say aloud “¡Viva España!” or dressing something with a motif that can barely resemble a Spanish flag, like red and yellow stripes on your polo shirt collar.
I agree with sifter- Spain is doing Israel a favor.
The Torah prohibits homosexuality,period. Having a “gay pride” celebration makes as much sense as a “sabbath violater pride” or “traif (not-kosher) eater pride” day.
Jews were originally expelled from Israel due to not observing the sanctity of the Torah and thus defiling the sanctity of the land.
In light of the above, the parade is offensive to all those who choose to attempt to live by Torah-standards, since it openly mocks religious values.
Forgive me for writing such un-pc words, but religious Jews are allowed to have their “Torah Pride”, maybe?
Secular humanism will bring hell on earth. Just like in the time of Noah.
@BigBen: I would encourage you to Google for information on “Bill Weintraub,” a gay American and secular Jew who since the late 1990s has been radically and vocally attacking the predominant “gay male demimonde” — arguing that homosexual men should (a) refrain from effeminacy and “drag queen” culture, and instead study the martial arts and develop their masculinity; (b) refrain from promiscuity, and instead follow the model of monogamous pair-bonding; and (c) totally abstain from anal sex — which is profoundly un-egalitarian as well as medically risky — and instead order their sexual practices around genital-to-genital rubbing without penetration, which he calls “frot”:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frot
(Note: wiki article includes a small cartoon illustration that isn’t appropriate for children, although it’s not necessarily “NSFW”)
The reason I bring this up is that Weintraub, although unabashedly secular, does at times refer to the Talmud to support his claim that the “abomination” prohibited by the Torah is, very specifically, male/male anal sodomy, but not necessarily other male homosexual acts such as mutual masturbation, or lesbian acts in general.
Of course, I understand that Orthodox Judaism may disapprove of all homosexual acts (even “frot”), but I thought it was worth pointing out that there’s a “Gay Activist” who is trying to steer gay sexual culture in a much more conservative direction, and is basing his arguments partly on Jewish religious traditions.
Me engustaria mucho invitar estos MADRILEÑOS humanistas gays para una GAY PRIDE en LA CIUDAD DE ISTAMBUL DE ONDE VINO LA FLOTILLA, otra en TERAN y EN DAMASCO DE ONE VIENEM LAS ARMAS HUMANITARIAS y POR FINAL EN GAZA (ESTOY SEGURO QUE PARA ESTA HUMANITRIA PRIDE, ISRAEL LES PERMITIRA LA ENTRADA). SEGURAMENTE SERAN MY HUMANITARIAMENTE MUERTOS, SIN NINGUNA DISCRIMINACION. HIPOCRITAS!
Bill Weintraub is fool and so is RobMcGee… Judaism and Christianity despise homosexuality… in fact it despises anything that is outside of the bonds of marriage
Why doesn’t he take his arguments out of Ancient Greece instead?
To point (a) – Look at the transvesites, boys and gays in the Ancient world gay history… they won’t leave it because it’s their culture
To point (b) – Gays have a LOT of testosterone and partly because of hypermasculinity (excess masculinity) they will not be not promiscuous… they will be really horny
To point (c) – Anal and homosexual are kinda related… it’s mostly a misygonist thing in the sense that it twists a human’s person of the body (catamite anyone?)
I applaud BigBen for his words… please gays just leave Jews and Christians alone
Isn’t it enough that you treated women nothing more than objects of reproduction in Ancient Greece?
Sorry I meant it twists the human view of the body
This is upsetting. As gays we need to stick together internationally and stand Proud to celebrate who we are and where we are taking the gay rights movement. We need to be Proud to be Gay TOGETHER!
http://ourscenetv.com/posts/397/proud-to-be-gay