This year’s GLBT WorldPride parade, scheduled for Aug. 10 in Jerusalem, has been canceled because local police say they can’t protect it.

However, organizer Hagai El-Ad, executive director of the gay community center Jerusalem Open House, says there will be an alternative public event Aug. 10, and that all other WorldPride events Aug. 6-12 will go ahead as scheduled.

In a telephone interview, El-Ad declined to give details of the replacement event but suggested it will be “powerful.”

“The alternative action in Jerusalem will focus on expressing our outrage at the ongoing violence and incitement in the name of religion against our community,” he said. “People in Jerusalem that day will be participating in a public activist event that will make a very powerful statement.”

Because anti-gay Orthodox Jews threatened to stage massive counterdemonstrations, Jerusalem police had planned to bring in officers from other cities to help protect the WorldPride march.

But because of the new war with Hezbollah guerrillas and Lebanon those officers are not available. In addition, some members of Jerusalem’s police force have been deployed outside of the city, closer to the war zones.

In recent weeks, Mayor Uri Lupolianski, right-wing politicians and Jewish, Christian and Muslim religious figures had called for cancellation of WorldPride, arguing, in essence, that it’s an outrage for sinners to flaunt their deviance on the streets of a “holy city.”

At last year’s ordinary Pride parade, ultra-Orthodox protester Yishai Schlissel stabbed three marchers and was later convicted of attempted murder. “I came to murder on behalf of God,” he told police. “We can’t have such abomination in the country.”

A small group of Orthodox Jews tried to block the march and around 1,000 anti-gays staged a rowdy counterdemonstration during which some militants threw bottles of urine and bags of feces at the marchers.

But such hostility is far from universal. Israeli courts have issued numerous gay-friendly rulings in recent years and, this past May, Jerusalem’s District Court ordered the city to fund Open House’s activities, including the annual Pride march. The municipality was instructed to give Open House $77,566 in funding that was denied in the years 2003-2005 and to stop discriminating in its future funding of nonprofit groups.

Meanwhile, some individuals and groups, including Lebanon’s leading gay organization, Helem, are opposing WorldPride for entirely different reasons, and have called for a boycott.

“[T]he unfortunate decision was made to hold WorldPride in Jerusalem under the slogan ‘Love Without Borders,’” Helem said in a statement. “Helem strongly condemns holding WorldPride in a city beleaguered by violence and conflict, and where the words ‘Love Without Borders’ belie a reality of separation, ubiquitous borders, destruction of homes and livelihoods, land theft, gross human rights violations, and the apartheid policies of Israel.”

WorldPride, which was last held in 2000 in Rome, is licensed by InterPride, the International Association of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride Coordinators.

Scotland’s Roman Catholic Church is seeking an exemption from coming legislation that requires schools to grant heterosexuality and homosexuality equal legitimacy in student lessons, London’s Times reported July 16.

Church leaders want Catholic schools to continue teaching that homosexuality is a sin. They have denounced the legislation as “totalitarian … thought control,” and Cardinal Keith O’Brien branded it a “threat to religious freedom.”

The planned laws also ban anti-gay discrimination by businesses and public authorities in the provision of goods, facilities and services. Church officials oppose that as well, saying they want to discriminate when renting out their facilities.

Iranian government policies encourage all gays to get a sex-change operation, the Persian Gay and Lesbian Organization claimed July 19.

“[The] Iranian government does not recognize homosexuals’ rights in Iran,” the group said. “They publicly declare that there are no legal limits for transsexuals and legally they can have a transgender surgery. … They use this as an excuse to deny existence of homosexuals and believe that everyone should be a heterosexual man or woman. According to this belief, everyone that has a ‘problem’ should have an operation and ‘transform’ her/himself.”

After such surgery, transsexuals are left to fend for themselves, PGLO said.

“No social prospect is provided after the operation and many of them have to fall into prostitution in order to make a living,” the activists said. “Denial of homosexuals in the country, their oppression and complete ignorance of their rights has caused many homosexuals to live in the worst psychological and social condition which results in frequent suicides, depression and seeking asylum to other countries.”

Meanwhile, on July 19, activists in around 15 nations staged public protests, with PGLO’s support, against Iran’s alleged executions of gay men. The date was the first anniversary of the public hangings of teenage boys Mahmoud Asgari and Ayaz Marhoni in the Iranian city of Mashad – either because they were lovers (according to local gays and some international activists) or for the crime of raping a 13-year-old boy (according to the government and other international activists).

The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission and Human Rights Watch opposed the public demonstrations, saying they’ve been unable to confirm that Asgari and Marhoni were hanged for being gay. The two organizations staged a competing event the same day in New York City to discuss strategies for dealing with Iran’s confirmed abuse and torture of gay people.

Several activists who focus on international affairs claim to have gathered evidence that debunks IGLHRC’s and HRW’s doubts, but other international activists and some journalists remain concerned that the evidence is not conclusive.

Assistance: Bill Kelley