POP STARS UNDER FIRE

LGBT activists have criticised rapper JaRule’s recent homophobic comments in a magazine interview as well as Madonna’s connection to a homophobic Kabbalah leader.

JaRule was quoted last week by Complex magazine slamming American pop culture for being too gay-friendly.

“Lets talk about all these fucking shows that they have on MTV that is [sic] promoting homosexuality, that my kids can’t watch this shit. Dating shows that’s [sic] showing two guys or two girls in mid-afternoon.”

“Let’s talk about shit like that! If that’s not fucking up America, I don’t know what is,” the rapper told the magazine.

The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) responded to the remarks in a statement posted on its website saying that, “No fair-minded person can look at JaRule’s interview with Complex Magazine and believe for one second that his children could be more harmed by what they might see on television than by the vulgarity and prejudice that comes out of their father’s mouth.”

The organisation went on to say that, “Now that media have seen JaRule’s intolerance unmasked by his own words, they have a responsibility not to provide in the future a platform for his ugly, vulgar displays of prejudice.”

Meanwhile, pop star Madonna, who is currently in Israel, has been criticised by gay activists for participating in a Kabbalah conference in Tel Aviv.

Israeli Kabbalah leaders have previously been vocal in their opposition to gay Pride Parades taking place in Jerusalem.

Rabbi David Basri, who is the head of the Kabbalah’s Magen David Yeshiva in Jerusalem, has also been openly homophobic, last year saying that an outbreak of bird flu was punishment from God for the behaviour of gays and lesbians.

He has been quoted as saying that homosexuality “is not a disease or a deviation, but a straight-out abomination. Even animals don’t behave this way… There is no place in the Holy City for such a phenomenon.”

Madonna, who has become a follower of the ancient Kabbalah sect in recent years, has been in Israel to celebrate the Jewish New Year. The star and her husband Guy Ritchie also met with Israeli President Shimon Peres on Saturday.