| The "Westboro Baptists" of Kansas seem to have lots of supporters among Haaretz readers - who would have thought it? The much-cited verse from Leviticus prohibits a man from lying with another man, as the Hebrew puts it, "mishkavei isha": even the rabbis of the Talmud were hard put to make sense of this phrase (which means "the lying-places of a woman", not "as with a woman"). However, it`s clear enough that countless Jews and Christians - otherwise utterly uninterested in Leviticus - are all too eager to employ this verse as a warrant for any sort of anti-gay abuse in our day. Yes, abuse. Curiously, Haaretz (a paper which should know better) dignifies the Westboro Baptists` bizarre activities by calling these a "protest". Protest...? On what grounds? Against what? Why on earth are Baptists from KANSAS "protesting" against members of a synagogue in Manhattan, people they do not know and who`ve never done them any harm? |
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