Habayit Hayehudi Candidate: Gays Should Stay ‘Abnormal’ at Home

Bezalel Smotrich, who is No. 9 on Habayit Hayehudi’s list of candidates for the upcoming Knesset election, said Sunday that gays and lesbians should stay “abnormal” at home.

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Smotrich, who organized an anti-gay protest in 2006 but expressed regret about it last month, remarked, “We will encourage normal family units, of a father, mother and children.”

At an election panel with candidates from several political parties at the Thelma Yellin High School of the Arts in Givatayim, Smotrich was asked about the anti-gay march he had organized. “A state may determine what is a normal family unit, of a man, woman and children because that is what the Lord, blessed be He, ruled,” answered Smotrich. “Every person has the right to be abnormal at home, but he can’t ask of me as a state to see the idea as normal.”

He said he loved all Jews in Israel and had a gay friend he grew up with, but he differentiates between “my ability to accept how a person wants to live at home and the Jewish character of the state.”

The students roundly condemned what he said, to which Smotrich retorted that the left no longer rules the country.

“You won’t determine what is light and dark,” he said. He claimed that after a similar panel in Gedera, gays chased after him and yelled that he did not deserve to live. “You’re okay with that?” he asked the students. “That’s enlightened?”