Eli Yishai Quotes
If it was up to me, I would send the gay community, who insisted on celebrating in Jerusalem, to Sodom and Gomorrah.
"Eli Yishai on Jerusalem Gay Pride Parade." Ynetnews, 9 Nov. 2006.
This quotation is hardly believable, even for an ultra extreme, evangelical, Christian, fundamentalist. His paranoia and homophobia went so far as to claim that somehow the only gay Congressman, Jared Polis, was going to bankrupt Christians who did not endorse his homosexuality. How he might do this Klingenschmitt never explained. But then to associate Polis with the Muslim Fundamentalist Terrorist organization ISIS—which executes homosexuals—and claim that Polis would behead Christians in America was over the top. The quotation illustrates the freedom of speech allowed in American political campaigning where the most absurd, libelous, falsehoods are allowed, as well as the fact that an obvious unbalanced person can freely run for office.
Islam forbids homosexuality and Sharia (Islamic religious law) prescribes death as the penalty for homosexuality. At that time Iran was a Muslim theocracy and if there were overt homosexuality that was officially discovered, the heretics would be killed. The logic of the government was that since they had killed the homosexuals, there were none left. At the same time all the research showed that while Muslim homosexuality was slightly less than Christian, it was still quite significant in all Muslim cultures that had been studied. If the President was to be believed, Iran was the only exception.
This quotation illustrates the brilliance of Scalia. He was in the minority of the Justices when he opposed gay marriage. However, instead of just writing a caustic dissent—which he did—he posed this question to one of the most brilliant attorneys in the country who was arguing the case for gay marriage. Clearly, gay marriage was not considered unconstitutional when the Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution. It is almost certain that no one in those times even considered such a prospect. However, by 2013 a number of states had allowed gay marriage, and the majority of Americans favored it. The best Olsen could answer was “There us no specific data in time. This is an evolutionary cycle”. Despite his oratory tour de force, Scalia was again in the minority and his view did not prevail. Public opinion had clearly changed, and most judges believed that the interpretation of the Constitution most also change and there is no more a specific time to say exactly when that change took place than there is to say exactly when America concluded that the nation should have Prohibition or any other social norm.
Eliyahu "Eli" Yishai is an Israeli politician. A former leader of Shas, he represented the party in the Knesset from 1996 until 2015, also holding several ministerial posts, including being Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Internal Affairs, and Minister of Industry, Trade, and Labor. In December 2014, he left Shas to establish the Yachad party.
