Gay Arabs - can a group face more discrimination?
Here's a review of a book about Gay Arabs from the Lebanon Star.
When Salim, a 20-year-old Egyptian, told his family that he was gay, they packed him off for six months of psychiatric treatment. When Ali, a teenager from Lebanon, was discovered to be gay, his father broke a chair over his head and his brother threatened to kill him for tarnishing the family honor. Ali left home and no longer has any contact with his relatives.Of course, one of the few places where gays can live proud lives in the Middle East is Israel.
When the family of another young Egyptian man found out their son was gay, they beat him and then sent him to a therapist. He convinced a young woman to pose as his girlfriend for a while, but once that ruse was up, his family beat him again, this time so harshly that he fled Egypt for the United States, where he applied for political asylum.
These are just a few among the many anecdotes that Brian Whitaker, the Middle East editor for The Guardian newspaper in London, relates in his new, groundbreaking book, "Unspeakable Love: Gay and Lesbian Life in the Middle East."
posted by GayandRight @ 6:51 PM
2 Comments:
The one good thing about this tragic situation is that it makes it really easy for me, as a gay man, to pick sides in that complicated hellhole called the Middle East. Arabs torture and murder gays. Israel doesn't. Arabs want to wipe out Israel. Israel could wipe the Arabs out but doesn't. I know what attempted genocide feels like. Guess which side I support?
It's absolutely disgusting to see groups like Queers for Palestine rally against the most gay-tolerant country in the middle east. Israel respects the rights of gays and lesbians to live in peace and freedom, while the Arab world would sooner see them tortured and murdered for their "un-Godly dysfuncion."
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