A petition has been filed to Israel's High Court of Justice after the Mitzpe Ramon Gay Pride parade was barred from its original route by police while an anti-LGBTQ+ Pride parade protest was approved for it in its place, Israeli media reported.
Police had called for the parade to be moved last week following supposed threats to public safety. Despite this, a local hesder yeshiva wishing to demonstrate against the parade was granted permission to do so where the parade was originally slated to be held, according to Ynet.
The response was condemned by the petition filers and local residents who initiated the Pride parade in the first place, who railed against how "basic human rights are being trampled on in Israel."
"Today, the LGBT community is being overrun, tomorrow the Left and the next day the secular Israelis – and from here, one can only imagine what will happen next."
Organizers
"Today, the LGBT community is being overrun, tomorrow the Left and the next day the secular Israelis – and from here, one can only imagine what will happen next," the parade organizers said, according to Ynet.
Background
This comes a month after the head of this local yeshiva, Rabbi Tzvi Kustiner, spoke out against the LGBTQ+ community in a speech, shouting, among other things, "gays, go home!"
"לא להתבייש, להגיד - הומואים הביתה!": המתקפה הבוטה של הרב צבי קוסטינר, ראש ישיבת מצפה רמון ומרבני מפלגת נעם, נגד קהילת הלהט"ב@YairEttinger pic.twitter.com/siqynKSv0k
— כאן חדשות (@kann_news) May 24, 2022
“This is the battle that I tell everyone, each one in his place. Don’t be shy. Be courageous. Where you work say ‘LGBTQ+ people, go home!’ ‘gays, go home!’” Kustiner was shown to be saying in video footage shared by KAN.
“Fight them on everything. It is our job in every place not to be ashamed of our Judaism. This crazy government, this insanity, God willing it will fall,” added the yeshiva head, with a number of students responding “Amen,” the video footage shows him saying.
Kustiner is a member of the Noam Party, headed by MK Avi Maoz. Noam is an extremist party established by members of the hard-line wing of the religious-Zionist community – specifically, close associates and allies of Rabbi Zvi Yisrael Tau, head of Yeshivat Har Hamor.
Tzvi Joffre contributed to this report.