Not just lowlifes

At first, I was delighted to see your editorial “Gueta and the haredim” (September 15). Unfortunately, it used real news – a member of Knesset being bullied out of office by the anti-gay lobby – only as a stepping stone to philosophize about fractured haredi leadership in politics.

Where are the people demanding a law that awards jail time for anyone trying to intimidate a parliamentarian into resigning? Because that is what happened. Even the opposition treated this outrage as a fait accompli, an act of God.

Yet don’t assume for a second that this bigotry is exclusively religious. The same day the commotion about MK Yigal Gueta’s radio interview broke, that bastion against haredi influence on Israeli society, the High Court of Justice, demanded that the words “to get married” be deleted from the phrase “The right to love, to get married, even if I am homosexual” from an Association for Civil Rights in Israel public-service announcement (“‘Ad can praise Arab, LGBT equality, not gay marriage,’” September 17).

These hateful actions do not come from lowlifes. These are some of Israel’s most prominent leaders.

ROBIN H. KOHEN The writer, co-author of Homosexuality and Halacha: It is Not that Simple – an Encyclopedic Look at How Jewish Law Deals with Love and Sexuality between Men, informed the Post that the name given is a pseudonym and requested that a place of residence be withheld.