For hundreds of years, people have fought tooth, nail, blood, and sweat over religion. And as long as there has been these conflicts, people have tried to reach a compromise and find peace in similarities and differences over shared notions of God...with little results. But Jews, Muslims, and Christians (Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant) can all find reconciliation and fellowship in one redeeming factor: their hatred of fisting and ass sex. (nytimes.com: sgnews/sgnews) Now they have come together in outrage against a planned 10-day gay pride festival in Jerusalem.

Now major leaders of the three faiths - Christianity, Judaism and Islam - are making a rare show of unity to try to stop the festival. They say the event would desecrate the city and convey the erroneous impression that homosexuality is acceptable.

"They are creating a deep and terrible sorrow that is unbearable," Shlomo Amar, Israel's Sephardic chief rabbi, said yesterday at a news conference in Jerusalem attended by Israel's two chief rabbis, the patriarchs of the Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox and Armenian churches, and three senior Muslim prayer leaders. "It hurts all of the religions. We are all against it."

Abdel Aziz Bukhari, a Sufi sheik, added: "We can't permit anybody to come and make the Holy City dirty. This is very ugly and very nasty to have these people come to Jerusalem. [...]

The outcry over the 2005 festival will not be confined to Israel. The American evangelical leader who helped to galvanize the opposition, [Rev. Leo Giovinetti, an evangelical pastor from San Diego], is the senior pastor of Mission Valley Christian Fellowship, an independent church that meets in a hotel in Southern California. A former band leader in Las Vegas, he is also host of a radio program heard on stations around the United States.

Neither he nor other evangelical American leaders were at the news conference in Jerusalem, which was called by the chief rabbinate of Israel. But by all accounts Mr. Giovinetti played a crucial role in spreading the first alarms among religious leaders about the gay festival.

Finding peace and understanding in mutual bigotry is like finding love and friendship in beating someone to death for being different than you.

SirPsychoSexy

Ridgewood, NJ

January 2004

APR 01, 2005 06:09 PM

I think you just offended all ass sex loving Buddhists.

akl

Sacramento, CA

February 2004

APR 01, 2005 06:29 PM

best news title of the day

Olivia

STAFF

Oakland, CA

APR 01, 2005 06:29 PM

Wait, what festival?

[EDIT: There ya go. I edited it.]

[Edited on Apr 01, 2005 6:31PM]

FallFromGrace

Seattle, WA

March 2004

APR 01, 2005 07:37 PM

Wow. Just wow.

The article does mention the fact that this bigotry is not indicative of EVERY Christian, Muslim or Jew.

DesmondKing

Nahunta, GA

December 2004

APR 01, 2005 07:43 PM

I am going to bring in the pork chops.

gogobongo

Dallas, TX

December 2003

APR 01, 2005 07:49 PM

I'll bring the potato salad. Is it okay if I make it naked with a toy rocket up my butt?

lamdalamdalamda

Chicago, IL

February 2003

APR 01, 2005 07:59 PM

SirPsychoSexy said:
I think you just offended all ass sex loving Buddhists.

we are now going to be nice to you with more vigor than ever before!

PlanNumberOne

Norway

February 2005

APR 01, 2005 08:24 PM

a headline to die for...! Makes me want to do full-on gay porn movies in Jerusalem, just to piss´em off. Any title suggestions? I´m drunk, so all I can think of is lame-o titles like "Jerusalem Jizz-fest". 1 & 2 & 3 ad infinitum. Suggestions welcome

Jenna does Jerusalem, anyone?

[Edited on Apr 01, 2005 8:26PM]