JERUSALEM – Shirtless Israeli men, colorfully dressed drag queens and others partied Friday through central ******** as tens of thousands of people took part in the city’s annual *** pride parade, the largest event of its kind in the ***********.
******** is one of the few places in the *********** where **** feel free to walk hand-in-hand and kiss in public. The city has emerged as one of the *****’s most ***-friendly travel destinations in recent years, in sharp contrast to the rest of the region.
****** spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said more than 80,000 people took part. Loud music blasted along the parade’s route, thick with people dancing to the beats and waving rainbow flags. Drag queens wearing heavy makeup, dresses with sequins and high heels bounced along to the music alongside scantily clad men and women.
********’s openness to **** stands in contrast to conservative Jerusalem, just a short drive away, home to some of the holiest sites to Judaism, Christianity and *****. Still, Jerusalem has a small *** scene and an annual pride parade, albeit on a much smaller scale.
**** serve openly in ******’s military and parliament and many popular artists and entertainers are ***. However, leaders of the *** community say ****** still has far to go in promoting equality.
Officially, there is no *** marriage in ******, primarily because there is no civil marriage of any kind. All weddings must be conducted through the Jewish rabbinate, which considers homosexuality a sin and a violation of Jewish law. But the state recognizes same-*** couples who marry abroad.
Across the rest of the ***********, *** and ******* relationships are mostly taboo. The pervasiveness of religion in everyday life, along with strict cultural norms, plays a major factor in that. Same-*** relations are punishable by ***** in Iran, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Yemen.
Among most Palestinians, **** tend to be secretive about their social lives. In the West Bank, a 1951 Jordanian law banning homosexual acts remains in effect, as does a ban in **** passed by British authorities in 1936.