All eyes on Jerusalem
07/30/2013 23:09
Tolerance, love, acceptance and pride from the ancient capital are worth their weight in gold. No other city in the world can do that.
Jerusalem Gay Pride Parade 2010
Jerusalem Gay Pride Parade 2010 Photo: Marc Israel Sellem/The Jerusalem Post
In 1948 when the State of Israel was established, most of the laws prevailing in then British Mandate Palestine were initially adopted by the fledgling state. One of those laws, dating from Queen Victoria’s time (she died in 1901), made homosexuality illegal. (Only between males. The prim, proper and Majestic Victoria was said to have expressed sheer disbelief that two women could or would ever love one another “that way”). That restrictive law – excluding lesbians – was adopted in Israel.
In 1967, a full 10 years after the Wolfenden Report (named for the commission investigating laws concerning homosexuality in Britain) had been published, Queen Victoria’s laws were dumped in Britain.
The ban on same-sex consensual acts in Israel was repealed by the Knesset in 1988.
According to the Huffington Post this week, the editors of the iconic Oxford English Dictionary are at full gallop in considering how to change the dictionary definition of marriage to reflect the reality of the world in 2013. A spokeswoman for Oxford University Press confirmed that the definition of “marriage” will change in a future edition of the Oxford English Dictionary to include same-sex couples.
“We continually monitor the words in our dictionaries, paying particular attention to those words whose usage is shifting, so yes, this will happen with marriage.”
New York City held its first pride parade in 1970, Jerusalem only in 2002. The parade in New York draws millions of marchers and spectators, while according to this newspaper there were only about 4,000 at last year’s event in Jerusalem. And yet – the importance of the event in Israel’s capital far far outweighs those in New York and all the dozens of annual parades all over the world, combined.
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/All-eyes-on-Jerusalem-321565
