Jerusalem Municipality Agrees to Permit Gay Parade in November
02:48 Sep 19, '06 / 26 Elul 5766
 
  The Jerusalem municipality agreed to have the World Pride gay parade in the capital on Nov. 10 in order to avoid a threatened Supreme Court action by the parade's sponsors.
 

The agreement includes security provided by Jerusalem police and was reached after three hours of negotiations between the State Prosecutor’s Office, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, the Jerusalem municipality , city police and members of the Open House gay organization.

Knesset and City Council members, religious councils from all three major faiths in Jerusalem – Jewish, Muslim and Christian – and international Jewish organizations have fought for months against the event, which was originally slated for August.

One of the fiercest opponents of the mammoth ‘World Pride’ gay parade is Jerusalem City Councilwoman and National Religious Party member Mina Fenton, who gathered tens of thousands signatures on a petition against the event.

Fenton told reporters after collecting more than 100,000 signatures in July that she was sure “these … signatures will clarify to the Supreme Court the majority opinion, as well as the dangers and degradation involved in holding the parade.”

Nonetheless, the Jerusalem municipality caved in to the pressure of facing a petition by the organization in Supreme Court. Efforts by Fenton and numerous others ultimately failed to prevent what the petition called “a provocation and a declared mockery of all that is precious and sacred in the Holy city of Jerusalem in the eyes of the entire world."

The World Pride gay parade is now officially scheduled to be held in Jerusalem on November 10. The municipality will handle the procedural arrangements, with security for the event to be provided by Jerusalem police officers.

It is not clear whether the rest of the week-long activities originally planned by Open House have been approved. Those activities were to have included a day of activities the Knesset – which numerous MK’s have asked the Speaker, Dalia Itzik, to cancel – to conclude with an event the organization’s website calls “‘Good Jerusalem Children’ – the greatest youth party in Israel.”
 
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news.php3?id=112272
 
Kay