Local tourism officials plan on turning Tel Aviv into the gay capital of the world - Ynet

Tel Aviv is known throughout the world as "The White City" due to the many Bauhaus-style structures that adorn its streets, but the city may soon be called "The Pink City," as tourism industry heads are planning on transforming the city into the gay capital of the world, Israel's leading newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reported.

"Tel Aviv and gay people are a perfect fit," an Israel Hotel Association (IHA) official said.

The idea was born when IHA Director-General Eli Ziv visited London recently to participate in the 2005 World Travel Market exhibition.

During the exhibition Ziv met with representatives of the homo-lesbian travel industry, and discovered an audience that would travel just about anywhere for a good party, even to the Middle East.

"The gay community has amazing consumer power, and Tel Aviv has a lot to offer to this community," Ziv explained.

"We have the beach, sun, culture and nightclubs. To our knowledge, gays are capable of hopping on a plane and traveling to the other side of the world just to participate in parties and events that are related to the gay community."

'Grand opening for homosexual events'

The IHA in Tel Aviv, along with a local gay rights group, turned to European travel agents who focus on the gay community and requested they prepare vacation packages to Tel Aviv.

"We are drafting plans to encourage gay tourism from Germany, England and Holland," Ziv added.

"We plan on approaching travel agents who are aware of the gay community's needs, launch a special website for gays and advertise Tel Aviv in gay European websites as well.

Jerusalem is scheduled to host the 2006 World Pride Parade , but Ziv is already working to have it moved to Tel Aviv.

"This event could mark the grand opening for homosexual events in the city," he said. "We need the boost."

'An airlift of gays'

Meanwhile, Tourism Ministry Director-General Eli Cohen said he would offer any financial assistance necessary to turn Tel Aviv into the gay capital of the world, and he is not alone: TUI, Europe's largest tourism conglomerate, has recently decided to offer charter flights to Tel Aviv. Israeli tourism officials said they believe the decision would facilitate the travel of thousands of gays to the country.

Today TUI offers a roundtrip ticket on a weekly charter flight to Israel for 150-200 euros (about USD 176-234).

"It will be helpful to our initiative if they increase the number of flights to Tel Aviv,' Ziv said.

"Now the occupancy rate on these flights already stands at more than 80 percent for the next few months. In February they plan to increase the number of flights to three a week. If this will indeed happen, we will see an airlift of gays to Tel Aviv."

On the other hand......

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wi...world-headlines



Gay Newlyweds Face Penalties in Emirates


By JIM KRANE
Associated Press Writer

November 26, 2005, 12:56 PM EST


DUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- More than two dozen gay Arab men -- arrested at what police called a mass homosexual wedding -- could face government-ordered hormone treatments, five years in jail and a lashing, authorities said Saturday.

The Interior Ministry said police raided a hotel chalet earlier this month and arrested 22 men from the Emirates as they celebrated the wedding ceremony, one of a string of recent group arrests of homosexuals here.











The men are likely to be tried under Muslim law on charges related to adultery and prostitution, said Interior Ministry spokesman Issam Azouri.

Outward homosexual behavior is banned in the United Arab Emirates, and the gay group wedding has alarmed leaders of this once-isolated Muslim country as it grapples with a sweeping influx of Western residents and culture.

The Arabian peninsula, nevertheless, has a long tradition of openly homosexual wedding singers and dancers.

"Lately people have been talking about (homosexuality), but it has been here for a long time," said Nadia Buhannad, a Dubai psychologist. "It becomes shocking only when it is your own son."

Police acting on a tip raided the hotel in Ghantout, a desert region on the Dubai-Abu Dhabi highway, and found a dozen men dressed as female brides and a dozen others in male Arab dress, apparently preparing for a ceremony that would join them as husbands and wives, Azouri said.

"It was a real party with balloons and champagne," he said.

The 26 men arrested include those from the Emirates as well as an Indian disc jockey and three men from neighboring Arab states. One of the arrested was to perform the wedding ceremony. Azouri said some of the group told police they worked as prostitutes. Others had been arrested before.

Last year, police made mass arrests at an apparent gay wedding in the conservative emirate of Sharjah and at the Khor Fakkan beach resort in Fujairah emirate, a police official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press.

Two dozen men arrested in Sharjah were given symbolic lashings -- meant to humiliate, not inflict pain -- and then released from jail, said prominent Emirati lawyer Abdul Hamid al-Kumaiti.

"There are so many others like these guys," al-Kumaiti said. "The police and rulers need to do more than just lash them and let them go."

Azouri described the arrests in Ghantout as a "delicate" matter made public for the first time -- more than a week after the event -- because the country's tribal leadership wants to demonstrate it will not tolerate open homosexuality.

On Friday, as newspapers reported the arrests, the minister of justice and Islamic affairs, Mohammed bin Nukhaira Al Dhahiri, called on parents to be vigilant for "deviant" behavior in their children.

"There will be no room for homosexual ... acts in the UAE," Al Dhahiri was quoted as saying in the Dubai-based Khaleej Times newspaper.

The arrested men have been questioned by police and were undergoing psychological evaluations Saturday. Azouri said the Interior Ministry's department of social support would try to direct the men away from homosexual behavior -- using methods including male hormone treatments, if the men are found to be deficient.

"Because they've put society at risk they will be given the necessary treatment, from male hormone injections to psychological therapies," he said. "It wasn't just a homosexual act. Now we're dealing with a kind of marriage. There was a ritual involved."

Foreigners arrested will be deported after serving any sentences imposed in court, he said.

Azouri said government psychologists were grappling to learn the causes behind an apparent increase in homosexual behavior in the Emirates. The booming economy has lured hundreds of thousands of Western residents and millions of tourists. Azouri said authorities want to be seen to be taking action at a time when complaints of gay behavior were emerging from the country's schools and myriad shopping malls.

Most cases of homosexual behavior are taboo and violate Emirati laws based on Islamic sharia. Azouri suggested that other countries with laws based on religion, including Christianity and Judaism, would also ban gay behavior and marriage.

"It's not about freedom of opinion, it's about respecting religion which forbids this type of behavior," he said.


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I find it interesting that western "godly" nations are trying to legitimize and rationalize unbiblical teachings while the muslims are standing up for holy teachings.

We (americans in general) can be so holier than thou and ready to condem but there are things we can learn .......

Mohammed was a closet Jew anyhow . He wanted to become a Jew , but the Jews studied his teachings and rejected him !!

It is strange nonetheless , many people talk about the intense evil of Islam , and yet it seems in many ways a watered down version of Christianity .

The moslems even accept that Jesus came in the flesh ...........

I don't think we are here to impose Gods laws on earth. We are here to convict others of their need to repent for sin and be saved from eternal damnation.

What does it help to imprison someone if they never accept what they have done is wrong? And you cannot stop evil thoughts by imprisonment. Actually most prisons are a hot bed of that kind of sexual deviancy.


All Praise The Ancient Of Days

In Moslem areas, if a woman lets her ankle (skin) show in public, the men cry "Harlot!".

In the USA, mini-dresses, lipstick, full make-up, erotic jewelry, Hollywood hair, etc are the norm.
Our TV is full of soft-porn. Even our Churches and Sunday School classes look like beauty pageants. It's a girl-watcher's paradise.

The Muslems accuse the West of being "decadent and depraved, full of sexual lust, porn," ............and they're right.

In the OT, God said that (in Israel) every man was a lusty stallion , neighing after his neighbor's wife.


dennis manning

It stops other people from following that path .

That’s just it, it does not stop people from following their path. If imprisonment stopped people from following their path then the prisons would have been emptied centuries ago.

People are sinners while sinning can not be stopped it can be greatly reduced only when the sinner genuinely acknowledges that they have done wrong.

All Praise The Ancient Of Days

Going back the original topic, its painful to see the world embracing sin and it actually does not help homosexuals either as it is encouraging them to sin even further against Gods will.

As someone who has come out of the homosexual exodus, it really does hurt to see this happen and it grieves me because I know it grieves God.

I have cows and no bulls. We AI everything so we can geneticly get what we want in one generation, but I can assure you, when you get that many of one gender in one pasture, so really strange things happen to personalities....

If they are in prison (pasture), they better have them locked up seperatly or they are only promising to TEACH them how to be homosexual.

leia

You may not change people by imprisoning them but people have to know (especially young people) that in the natural there are laws and consequences.

We were ...a society of standards.

Our government was... based on those principles at one time.

When we don't chastise God does....