Ha'aretz reports:
The ultra-Orthodox rabbinical court, Haredi Badatz [Yerushalyim], placed a "curse" Sunday on the participants in the upcoming Gay Pride parade scheduled to take place next week in Jerusalem.
The court also cursed the police officers who will be maintaining order during the parade.
Badatz rabbis plastered warning posters on Jerusalem city walls saying "All those involved in the matter, those of impure souls and those helping them and guarding them, they will feel in their souls a curse, a bad spirit will come over them and haunt them, they will never be cleansed of their sins, from the judgment of God, in their bodies, their souls and their finances."…
Why is it we do not see similar posters from Badatz Yerushalyim attacking those who steal from non-haredim or the government, cheat on their taxes, or cover for any of this? And why is it these 'holy men' think curses will help?
Why pick on one sin, a sin that is deeply rooted and may have a genetic cause, and ignore other sins – even sins called "abomination" by the Torah – that are less deeply rooted and lack a genetic component?
I think the reason is twofold. First, rabbis are conflicted about sex. They view it through the twisted lens of 16th and 17th century kabbalah, spread first by Shabbatai Tsvi and then by the Ba'al Shem Tov and his followers and drawn heavily from non-Jewish asceticism of surrounding Middle East cultures, rather than viewing sex through the lens of the Torah itself. And because they know next to nothing about the earlier Jewish theologies that preceded kabbalah, they err.
Secondly, I think many of these men are homophobic. Rather than empathy and compassion, they have hatred.
What say you?