Venting... and more.

[eumelia]

I still can't stop thinking about Saturday night.

I didn't know the people who were murdered, nor any of the wounded.

It was a youth group meeting, just a bunch of teenagers playing cards while one of the few adults they could trust was there to just... be there for them.

A friend I spoke to today feared this will just be the first of many incidences and I find that so heart breaking and it pisses me off, because I honestly thought that while things were crappy, it wasn't all full of shit.

I wasn't too keen on the anti-religious rhetoric that came out, mainly because I fear it will backfire and I honestly don't believe that all religious people are evil.

Reading this article though, makes me hope that something might actually be done to curb the power of religion in this country.

[...]
The writing was on the wall. Literally, I mean, the writing was actually on the wall, written in big black letters, on many a wall in Jerusalem, with Rabbis signing and giving their own individual battle-cries, each miraculously suitable as a soundbite. The writing was present in the Israeli public sphere for a long time, back in my youth as far back as I can remember, in calls of Rabbis to get rid of the abomination. With all the tolerance and gay-friendliness in Tel-Aviv-of-above, there is a Jerusalem-of-below which declares “We’re here, we’re Orthodox, and we will get rid of the Sodomites”. It is impossible to capture this call in a single blog post. I will thus only discuss the latest big call, the one from June 2009.

Less than two months ago, around the time of this year’s Jerusalem Gay Pride Parade, one of the most prominent Rabbis, Ovadia Yosef, was featured in a widely-circulated poster (pashkevil) where he writes “This is an abomination; We are all Phinehas” [my translation]. His statement refers to the Gay Pride Parade marching in the streets of the holy city. For a secular Jew it is easy to see such a poster on the street and pay no heed: this material is not addressed at us. And even if we do read it, not many remember who Phinehas is and what role he played. However, as noted back then by bloggers Yossi Gurevitz (who also writes on this blog) and Amir E. Aharoni this is a thinly-veiled call for murder. Phinehas is a biblical figure revered for an act of holy zeal in the name of God: he ran a spear through Zimri (son of a Jewish bigwig) and Cozbi (the daughter of a Midianite high-roller, a gentile) while they were having sex. These were times when some Midianites were trying to harm Jews. Zimri was openly defying the orders of Moses, by fraternizing with Midianites. Phinehas, in a “moment of great strength born of holy zeal” (sayeth Wikipedia) slayed them both simultaneously with a spear. He penetrated them both with a holy Jewish giant phallus, if you will. This is the story of Phinehas. Phinehas is revered in Jewish tradition for being the one to “slay the plague”, and God promiseth him and his seed eternal priesthood. Then cometh Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, in 2009 A.D., and asks his followers to go in Phinehas’ footsteps. He was asking this using thinly disguised code which is clear to anyone with knowledge of the bible (or with access to Wikipedia, for that matter).
[...]

Emphasis mine
I suggest you read the whole thing, that isn't even the worst.

But the more I read up on the language several Rabbis used, that religious Members of Knesset used over the years to denigrate and demean LBGT people:
Comparing us to bird flu.
That we're sick.
That we aren't legible to adopt and actually went so far as to push for legislation.
Saying that our "lifestyle" causes natural disasters - the famous earthquake comment.
That we undermine the entire Jewish religion.
That we are AIDS ridden.
That we are we are worse than beasts unfit for consumption.
That we have no souls.
That we corrupt children.
That we are the agents of autogenocide in Israeli society.

Bigotry, upon lies, based upon the twisted mindedness of religious people who have too much power and too much air-time.

Now it's our turn and fuck if we're going to be quiet.

Comments

[schemingreader.livejournal.com]

You want to know what undermines Judaism? I'll tell you what undermines Judaism. Bulldozing people's olive trees in the land of Israel, something that is expressly prohibited in very clear language in the Torah because you'd have to be a total ASSHOLE to do it, that undermines Judaism. Oppressing the workers in your kosher slaughtering plant, that undermines Judaism. Selling fucking human kidneys while taking tzedakah money from your pious congregants, THAT! one might say, that undermines Judaism.

Bird flu my ass.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

I like this.

Thank you.

[schemingreader.livejournal.com]

Oh, I just sit here reading these awful upsetting things all day, and then these hypocrites open their mouths...damn.