Scathing Response

Wayne Besen, the director of Truth Wins Out, an organization that challenges ex-gay propoganda, writes a scathing response to Jerusalem's new law banning any assembly that offends religious sensibilities or may be deemed a threat to public order. Specifically, Jerusalem is two votes from passing their new law to ban Gay Pride in Jerusalem. (The vote for the bill is not expected to be taken until after this year's Jerusalem Gay Pride.) Besen contends that Israel's political system, which is very much like our own, where the right to protest and hold public assemblies challenging anything from politics to religion, that Israel's agreement to such a law could have a dramatic backlash with unintended consequences.

In the same way, it is like our own assemblies where we gather to protest one thing or another. Can you imagine a political system that banned a protest that would be deemed offensive to someone? With the wrong people in power, anarchy would thrive. And the prisons would be filled with political 'Nelson Mandella-like dissidents'. Or, as a wisened Oklahoma grandparent might say, "They're cutting off their nose despite their face."

Besen goes even further in his lamblast by suggesting an even greater threat:

If the ultra-Orthodox think for one second that American and European Jews have any intention of supporting the Jewish version of Iran, they’ve got another thing coming. It is inexcusable that people, who have felt the sting of persecution, now mimic the tyrants who drove them to the shelter of Israel.

Go here to read his entire article.