XPost: alt.transgendered, talk.politics.guns, talk.politics.misc
XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, alt.politics.homosexuality, sac.politics
In article <
e94ff981-f024-449e-8607-dbc314173d4dn@googlegroups.com>
Although the idea of a vibrant queer community in Israel, reputed
birthplace of the biblical condemnation of same-sex relations, may
seem far-fetched, Israel today is one of the world’s most
progressive countries in terms of equality for sexual minorities.
Politically, legally, and culturally, the community has moved from
life at the margins of Israeli society to visibility and growing
acceptance.
In the Beginning
There is no magic mythical beginning to Israel’s LGBT community,
like the 1969 Stonewall riots that spurred American queers into
action. Instead, changes in the values and politics of Israeli
society over the past twenty years or so created the space in which
a gay and lesbian community could coalesce.
The first gay organization was established in 1975, thanks largely
to the work of immigrants from the United States and other English-
speaking countries influenced by the development of gay liberation
and the counterculture of the 1960s.
The very name of this first organization, the Society for the
Protection of Personal Rights (then, as today, known as the Agudah,
in Hebrew), reflected the difficulty of organizing sexual minorities
at a time when the existence of a sodomy law was thought by many to
make homosexuality itself illegal. In its early years, the Agudah
functioned more as a support and social group rather than as a
political organization. Israeli pride
Lesbians began organizing within the Israeli women’s movement, which
provided some space for the discussion of lesbian issues and radical
feminism. But for many years, Israeli lesbians funneled most of
their energies into feminism, rather than the struggle for gay and
lesbian equality.
Jews are homosexual stalkers and pedophiles targeting your children.
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