ושיניתם לבביך

A change of heart is sorely needed.

Today, my fiancee and I attended the amended and contracted Gay Pride March. Well, it was originally a march. As a result of fears and negotiations and security concerns and all the rest of it, it was turned into a static event in an enclosed stadium surrounded on all sides with a wide and sweeping police presence.

The event, itself, was wonderful. It was a pleasure to see so many people who were not prepared to be intimidated, who were prepared to take the risk, and come together to stand up for themselves, their friends or family members, their partners. The drag queen comperes were also funny.

But what was incredible was that the only form of provocation that I could see was of the intellectual and emotional kind.

People seem to have the view that gay & lesbian people are ipso facto naked paedophile nymphomaniacs, who would walk down the main street of Mea Shearim humping haredi children and animals, to the tune of Dana International's Viva La Diva, if they could. It turns out that in practice, the Israeli Gay & Lesbian community are, on the whole, responsible and sympathetic to the sensitivities of other minority groups (of which haredim still are one or more) - and are, moreover, non-violent - and are more interested in having people stop trying to harm them than really anything else.

For me, this was the reason it was important that the March occur in Jerusalem, and this was the reason it was important for me to be there. It is impossible that Jerusalem, the capital of the Jewish State, will turn into a hub of theocracy and intolerance. It is impossible that with the Jewish People's experience of vilification and persecution, we will allow minorities to be vilified and persecuted in our midst. Clearly it happens, and more often than we would like to believe. But not on my watch.