![Hadash MK Ofer Cassif, left, with Young Communist League activists at the Gay Pride Parade held last week in Rehovot; the placard reads: "Homophobia [and] Racism are the same violence."](https://maki.org.il/en/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/2019-07-15a-220x126.jpg)
Israel’s Rightist Education Minister Defends “Gay Conversion Therapy”
Education Minister and far-right religious leader from The Jewish Home (HaBayit HaYehudi) political party, Rabbi Rafi Peretz, ignited a firestorm of protest Saturday night, July 13, when he told a Channel 12 television interviewer that he believes the obscurantist practice of “gay conversion therapy” – trying to change a gay individual’s sexual orientation – is…