When the Gays Come Marchin' In

It's official: Jerusalem's 5th Gay Pride March will get underway at 11:00 am on Friday, and it is planned to finish around 3:00 pm, well before sundown. Up to 12,000 cops will be on standby, and the entire nation will be placed on high security alert. (But isn't this the norm?)
Organizers from Open House, a local gay advocacy group, hope it'll be more about free expression than free love, so they have discouraged bawdy costumes and louche displays in the streets.It does not take much to provoke hatred from the sexually frustrated and devout here. In fact, gay-bashing tendencies seems to be one of the few factors that the fundamentalists of Judaism, Islam and Christianity have in common. The new parade route will stick to wide streets, avoiding spots where ultra-Orthodox protesters are likely to lob stones or stinkbombs or turds down onto the marchers. Prayers, petitions, and curses to counter these marchers will be set in motion in the next three days. No one mentions that German and Polish homosexuals were also incinerated at labor camps during the Holocaust.

Meanwhile, the media have been far less concerned about the 50 Palestinians who were killed under IDF fire in Gaza last week, as well as one teenage girl suicide bomber who blew herself up. Israelity Bites, no?