Israel's chief rabbis have joined Christian and Muslim clerics in a rare alliance to protest plans to hold an international gay festival in Jerusalem this summer. The 10-day World Gay Pride festival, last held in Rome in 2000, is to include street parties, workshops and a gay film festival. Jerusalem's Orthodox Jewish mayor, Uri Lupolianski, says he is powerless to interfere, as public events are licensed by the police, not city hall. A Jerusalem police spokesman said on Thursday that police had received a number of requests not to issue a permit for the festival but had not yet made a decision. At a news conference, Yona Metzger, one of the chief rabbis, pleaded with the festival's organizers to take it elsewhere. "Please do not damage the holiness of Jerusalem," he said. "Preserve its character, preserve its peace ... cancel your plans." Metzger was joined at the news conference by Rabbi Shlomo Amar, Latin Patriarch Michel Sabbah and other Christian and Muslim officials in demanding the event be canceled.
