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Rabbi Menachem Fruman, back left, Muslim cleric Abdel Salem Menasra, front left, Archbishop Aristarchos, of the Greek Orthodox Holy Land Patriarchate, middle, Archbishop Aris of the Armenian Orthodox Church, second from right, and Latin Patriarch Michel Sabbah, attend a joint press conference, at a hotel in Jerusalem, Wednesday, March 30, 2005. (AP)
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| By Associated Press March 31, 2005 |
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| Gay pride parade, Jerusalem, 2003. (AP file) |
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Israel's chief rabbis joined Christian and Muslim clerics in a rare alliance Wednesday to protest plans to hold an international gay festival in Jerusalem this summer.
In a shared news conference, Rabbis Shlomo Amar and Yona Metzger joined Latin Patriarch Michel Sabbah and other Christian and Muslim officials in demanding cancellation of the 10-day WorldPride festival, planned for August.
Greek Orthodox Patriarch Irineos I, embroiled in a scandal over leasing church property to Israelis, was billed to take part but did not appear.
The WorldPride event, last held in Rome in 2000, is to include street parties, workshops and a gay film festival. Jerusalem's ultra-Orthodox Jewish mayor, Uri Lupolianski, says he is powerless to interfere, as public events are licensed by the police, not city hall.
At Wednesday's news conference Metzger, chief rabbi representing Israeli Jews of Ashkenazi, or European, origin, pleaded with the festival's organizers to take it elsewhere.
"Please do not damage the holiness of Jerusalem," he said. "Preserve its character, preserve its peace ... cancel your plans."
Sabbah, the top Roman Catholic official in the Holy Land, said he was happy to see Christian, Muslim and Jewish religious leaders taking a united stand on the sanctity of Jerusalem.
"As well as being holy to the three religions, it is holy to all humankind," he said.
Opposition to the happening has forged some unusual alliances. Earlier this month evangelical Christians and rabbis from the United States joined forces with ultra-Orthodox Israeli Jews to warn that holding the festival in Jerusalem could provoke divine retribution along the lines of the biblical story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorra.
Muslim cleric Abdel-Salem Menasra repeated that warning on Wednesday.
"God destroyed those cities and everyone in them," he said. "I'm warning everybody, God will destroy Jerusalem together with the Jews, the Christians and the Muslims."
In the past, Israeli gays have held small marches in Jerusalem that have passed relatively peacefully, with a few shouted insults from onlookers and minor acts of vandalism.
This time the plan is for a major international happening; the Rome event attracted tens of thousands of participants.
Organizers of the festival, under the theme "Love Without Borders," say they want to promote coexistence.
A majority of Jerusalem's more than 600,000 residents are either Orthodox Jews or Muslim or Christian Palestinians, traditional communities that oppose homosexuality.
Clerics at Wednesday's conference said they would form a joint committee to lobby politicians and police to prevent the festival.
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