According to the AP, the Attorney General has ordered that the gay pride parade scheduled for Friday in Jerusalem go forward.  This in spite of a week's worth of rioting among the Ultra Orthodox Jews who perceive homosexuality as a sin and the parade as a violation of the holy city of Jerusalem.

Ultra-Orthodox Jews have rioted in Jerusalem nearly every night over the past week, burning garbage cans, blocking roads and assaulting police officers in an attempt to get the authorities to call off the march, approved months ago by the Supreme Court.

At last year's march, an ultra-Orthodox man stabbed and wounded three participants.

So a gay pride parade violates the sanctity of Jerusalem, but rioting and assault do not?  How is that even conceivable?  We saw this same situation throughout Eastern European countries all summer -- Orthodox Christians and Catholics and Muslims united in beating down the homosexuals who dared to attend a parade.  Apparently, as Time reports, hatred can unite enemies.

The AG has ordered parade organizers and police to work out a compromise route to minimize the likelihood of violence. Given this report, that's not very likely.  When religious leaders are promising to hurl apples with razor blades at a parade ...

I received this via email.   

Your presence is requested at an historic event..

The Post-Gazette has the story here.  

[Janet] said she is reminded of Mordecai's words to the biblical heroine Esther, who was chosen to be a queen of Persia at a time when Jews faced genocide.

"He said that perhaps it was for this very moment that you were brought to the position you are in. I very much feel that the circumstances of my life -- both my economic circumstances and the fact that my children are now grown -- have all configured to have me step forward at this moment," she said.

Bishop Duncan and his faithful bigots are taking their toys and going home.  To heck with the national province of the Episcopal Church and its female president and her homorespective ways.  To heck with them. 

The vote which was anticipated confirms the rift between the conservative Pittsburgh diocese (minus a few forward thinking souls) and the American Episcopal Church. Duncan claims he wants to be in greater communion with the worldwide Anglican Church.  Folks like Peter Akinola, Archbishop of Nigeria, who supports legislation making homosexuals illegal (not the activity, the person). 

Duncan did not act hastily.  First, he jerrymandered his own new province of which he is the big cahuna.  Nice, huh?  Rick Santorum has a nice career ahead of him in church politics if he plays his cards right. 

Yesterday's vote, which followed this summer's approval of the resolution by the diocese's standing committee, does, as Bishop Duncan said yesterday, give the Pittsburgh diocese a new temporary home: the Anglican Communion Network.

In fact, a line item in the budget approved yesterday will send the estimated $2,000 in dues formerly earmarked for Province III to the network, an organization of about 200,000 Episcopalians unhappy with what they consider "innovations" in the denomination, particularly the ordination of openly gay clergy and same-sex blessings.

Bishop Duncan is moderator of the network.

Innovations!  Say it isn't so.  This is really sad.  Duncan has no intentions of compromising on anything.  He doesn't want to report to a woman and he ain't gonna support the Episcoqueerians.  Now its going to become a custody battle. 

Here's a rundown on previous PghLesbian coverage of this issue. 

African-American civil rights activists and would be Presidential candidate Al Sharpton called out the Christian right for obsessing on gay rights and abortion to the peril of social justice issues including poverty, education and civil rights.

Tony Perkins, official spokeswhore for the wingnuts, disagrees.  He believes that poverty and education issues are symptoms of a the breakdown of the family unit. 

So if we criminalize abortion and homosexuality, we'll end poverty.  Huh.

I'm with Al.