It is unclear if Knesset member Avi Maoz has the authority and the political backing to end the annual “Pride Parade,” which takes place every June, but he cannot be accused of hiding his views about homosexuals proudly dancing down the streets in the heart of Judaism.
“Do you know how much those marches harm holy Jerusalem, its public space?” Maoz recently told a newspaper. “You want to demonstrate — demonstrate. But a parade of promiscuous abomination in public?”
According to The Times of Israel, Maoz is vowing a crackdown after he struck a political deal Dec. 1 with Benjamin Netanyahu, who has emerged as prime minister in a surprise return to national politics. For his support of Netanyahu, Maoz was named a deputy prime minister and the leader of a new government agency tasked with “national Jewish identity.”
Netanyahu, meanwhile, has insisted Maoz will not be allowed to end the annual “pride” parade.
Bible teacher and radio host Jan Markell, who leads Olive Tree Ministries, tells AFN she appreciates an Israeli leader who hasn’t forgotten the Bible condemns homosexuality.
“It’s the flaunting of such wickedness and what the Bible says about this particular sin,” Markell says. “It's something to be taken very seriously. This is God's land.”
Present-day Israel is mostly a secular society, with a liberal government in control, however, which is why a crowd of approximately 10,000 marched through Jerusalem’s streets in June for the so-called “March for Pride and Tolerance.”
That event marked 20 years of “pride” marches in the city, The Jerusalem Post reported at the time.
“We have nothing to be ashamed of,” a parade organizer, ignoring Israel’s history recorded in the Torah, told the Post this summer. “And Jerusalem, you have nothing to be ashamed of.”
Maoz was called a “far-right homophobe” in the Times story and an editorial by the Post called him an “extremist” for his “blatant homophobia.”
