Jewish Group, With Hired Protesters, Opposes the Gay Pride Parade

NY Times    New York City’s annual Gay Pride Parade has long been one of the city’s more festive celebrations. 

Today’s parade, in the glow of Friday’s Supreme Court ruling that the right to same-sex marriage is guaranteed by the Constitution, carried an extra burst of energy and emotion. The parade in San Francisco was similarly exuberant. See full story.

 

Some of the most curious costumes worn along the parade route belonged to protesters.

Behind a barricade, a group of men wore the fringed Jewish prayer garment known as the tzitzit and held up anti-gay signs bearing the logo of a group calling itself the Jewish Political Action Committee.

“Judaism prohibits homosexuality,” one sign read.

But the men were not Jewish. They were Mexican laborers, protesting because they were paid to protest, said one of the men, who would not give his name.

Heshie Freed, a member of the political action committee, an Orthodox Jewish group based in Brooklyn, said that the men were supplementary troops, filling in for the Jewish students who would normally be called upon to demonstrate.