Man with bomb arrested before Jerusalem gay parade

JERUSALEM, June 21 (Reuters) Israeli police detained an Orthodox Jewish man carrying a small home-made bomb in Jerusalem today, as demonstrators marched in support of gay rights and defied threats of violence from religious protesters.

''Police stopped a 32-year-old religious Jew who was carrying a home-made explosive device,'' police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said of the arrest just before an annual gay pride parade.

The event ended without major incident but in all 23 people were arrested in connection with protests against the march.

About 7,000 police officers were deployed inside and around Jerusalem to protect the marchers - about 2,000 of them by police estimates - after threats from religious Jews, who take exception to the event being held in a city they hold sacred.

At a separate event some streets away, blocked behind police barriers, religious Jewish men in traditional black and white garb held a separate rally, intoning prayers against the march.

One man evaded police to approach marchers yelling: ''Filth! Get out of Jerusalem!''. He was escorted away by police.

In 2005, an Orthodox Jew stabbed and wounded three marchers and fears of violence caused a march to be cancelled last year in favour of a heavily protected gathering in a stadium.

Among those walking under rainbow banners and balloons close to Jerusalem's Old City, Judy Enteen, a mother from Jerusalem, held a sign that read: ''My gay son is a gift from God.'' ''I want people to know that being gay is a gift,'' she said.

A much larger gay pride march in Israel's secular metropolis Tel Aviv passed without incident this month but the disputes in Jerusalem highlight one of many divides in Israeli society and raised questions about how to ensure the special character of Jerusalem, sacred to three major religions, is not compromised.

Many devout Jews, Muslims and Christians view homosexuality as an abomination. Senior Muslim clerics in Jerusalem also condemned today's parade.

Noa Satat, chairwoman of Open House, the organisation that fought a series of court challenges for the right to demonstrate, told Reuters: ''We are thrilled to be here today, celebrating our freedom of speech in the centre of Jerusalem.'' A rally planned to take place at the end of the parade was cancelled, however, after a dispute with the city authorities.

Police arrested more than 130 ultra-Orthodox Jews in the days before the march, some on suspicion of planning violence, others during protests in Jerusalem and elsewhere in which officers used water cannon against stone-throwing protesters.

REUTERS DS BST0030