Five gay couples wed in ceremony on Tel Aviv beach

[sabra]

Source: Haaretz

Five gay couples wed Friday in a ceremony held on the Tel Aviv beach at the end of the city's 11th annual Gay Pride Parade which saw thousands of people from all walks of life join in celebration on the city's streets.

The three lesbian couples and two male same-sex couples walked up to the Chuppah, the Jewish wedding altar, while gay Israeli pop star Ivri Lider played and sang.

The ceremony was performed according to Jewish marriage rites, with each couple exchanging rings and Hebrew vows before breaking the glass as the crowd erupted in applause.

MK Nitzan Horovitz (Meretz), the Knesset's first openly-Gay parliamentarian attended the wedding, where told Haaretz "I hope that from this day weddings like this can happen in every place in Israel and not just in Tel Aviv. Weddings for everyone man and woman, man and man, and woman and woman, and this will be the end of the monopoly of the ultra-Orthodox over our lives in Israel.

Gay Israeli filmmaker Eytan Fox, director of "Walk on Water" and "The Bubble", told Haaretz "it's a very important and historic day. It's very exciting and in the end the good guys won."

The parade was sponsored by the Tel Aviv municipality and began at Meir Park before winding its way down the city's boulevards to the beachfront.


Read more: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1092351.html

[joeybee12]

1. Whoo-hoo!

:toast:

[Behind the Aegis]

2. What a nice way to end a pride parade.

Tel Aviv is supposedly a hotspot for GLBT life in Israel.

[Doctor_J]

3. Shit. That means even Israel is less reactionary than us

Didn't see that one coming.

:thumbsup: to the happy new couples.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

4. Israel is definitely ahead of the US in rights for gays

I'm not a fan of Israel, but they're good on this.

[paulsby]

5. their ahead of pretty much everywhere in the middle east

in many countries, you can be killed just for being gay.

i applaud israel for supporting GLBT rights, not to mention the fact that their military has long had openly gay members.

their very EFFECTIVE military (hint, hint, obama)

[izquierdista]

9. But can you marry a Palestinian?

There is ALWAYS someone who you can fall in love with which will bring out the vileness in people around you.

[imdjh]

7. And Uruguay has military nondiscrimination.

[nomorenomore08]

8. As do about 30 other countries. Even Poland, for Christ's sake!

That one really surprised me to read about...

[KamaAina]

10. Looks like Obama forgot Poland

:P

[proteus_lives]

6. Mazel Tov!

:toast: