November 17, 2006--Fanaticism LXXIV--Sodom and Gay-Morrah

Though in the U.S. it has been one of the Republican's most potent wedge issues, mobilizing Evangelicals to get to the polls, in Israel, to quote our president, it’s a uniter and not a divider.

So when gay rights advocates organized a rally in Jerusalem last weekend, Jewish, Christian, and Muslim clerics joined forces to oppose them. It’s pretty much the only thing about which they agree.

The Vatican put it quite well when it urged the Israeli government to ban the rally since it would “prove offensive to the great majority of Jews, Muslims, and Christians given the sacred character of the city of Jerusalem.”

But about 3,000 turned out, and participated in an orderly manner, protected by about 5,000 police. They had to be careful, though, about selecting a venue, needing to avoid holding it too near any ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods where youth have rioted recently in opposition to gays (see NY Times report linked below).

One Rabbi Levin of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis in the United States and Canada said, “They are making a statement against God himself.” Eli Yishai, one of Israel’s deputy prime ministers added, “If it was up to me, I would send the gay community to Sodom and Gomorrah.” And presumably build a fence around them.

But on the other hand, since gay-bashing appears to be such solid common ground for fanatics of all faiths, maybe we can dispatch Condi Rice to the Middle East to see if somehow the dormant Roadmap to Peace can be revitalized by turning it into a plan to bring about peace by setting up a separate homeland for homosexuals.

Meanwhile, back in the U.S.A., in the same issue of the Times, we learn that in Houston, Garden Guy Inc, a local landscaper, sent an email to a gay couple telling them that they “choose not to work for homosexuals” (article also attached below). This created something of a furor; but one of the Garden Guys, Mrs. Farber, a woman, reported that they though they did lose some business, about $500 worth, they more than made up for it, picking up about $40,000 in new jobs because they, to quote her, “said the truth.”

And they are clear about just what that “truth is”—the Garden Guys Website is full of both fall planting specials and extensive citations from the New Testament to help them make the case that “the God-ordained institution of marriage is under attack.”

So if I want to get some fruit trees, sorry about that, bushes, I mean shrubs planted in Sodom or Gomorrah, who would I turn to? The Garden Gays?

Again, sorry—clearly I need a vacation.