Unflagging pride: Young Israelis, one cloaked in a rainbow pride flag with the Star of David, revel at Tel Aviv's annual gay pride parade on June 12. About 20,000 people danced through the streets of the coastal city, considered one of the world's gay-friendliest and a "bastion of secularism" in Israel. Having taken place for the past nine years, the parade has received relatively little outcry from the country's religious community. Israel removed its ban on consensual same-sex sexual activity in 1988.