Some of the arguments put forward are just comical. “If you allow gays to marry then next you will allow dogs to marry” is an argument put forward by the Christian bigots in America. It seems that for some people here the equivalent to marrying dogs is legalising incest. What can one say? It is as logical as arguing that if you allow women to get educated you’ll start educating dogs.

Human rights must be universal because otherwise they don’t protect the freedoms of all. After all, if you won’t protect some people’s rights because you don’t like what they do then maybe someone will deny your rights because they don’t like you. Personally, I don’t like what religious people do, but I went to school in France and I learned my Voltaire: “I do not agree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it”. Or you can learn the same principle from the other side. Nina Simone the great black American musician sang: “You don’t have to live next door to me, just give me my equality”.

Some people want to subordinate human rights to religion. To do this they separate gay rights from human rights: we want to support their human rights but not gay rights! What are gays? Penguins? How are gay rights not human rights? Human rights mean equality before the law for all. If the law marries straight couples then equality demands that it should marry gay couples. This is not optional, it is not some fancy extra or western deviation: it is what equal human rights means. You don’t like it? Chill! You’re not invited to my wedding anyway.

This week I have been reading about the 18 year old in Iran who has been sentenced to hang. Of course, one Iranian writer here has explained that no one is executed just for being gay – they are rapists or child molesters or something. That must be why in the Iran where no one can get a fair trial before the mullah infested courts, Mohammad Mostafaei had volunteered to be this young guy’s lawyer: he was protecting a rapist you think?

I sit here in Europe safe from the bigotry, hatred, judicial murder that so many gay men and lesbians face elsewhere and I feel like a coward. So, I join campaigns to fight for freedom everywhere. Not just for gays, for religious minorities, for women, for political dissidents – even those I disagree with. Because it is democracy that makes us all free even when we disagree about a question. Sometimes I am frustrated because I meet other young guys from the middle east or maghreb and I ask if they are involved. So few are, they end up here and they are safe to party, to enjoy themselves, maybe get married settle down. They want a quiet life. I try not to blame them when they don’t care about Palestine or Kurdish rights or honour killings. Sometimes they will be concerned about gay rights but then I mention maybe the persecution of Baha’is. “What do I care about baha’is they say? Bahai’s are anti-gay”. You know what lesson I learn from this? That gays are like everyone else – they can have their own prejudices and they can have a limited view of human rights.

But I carry on because, well because I think about the old woman at the Kurdish community centre. I call her the veiled communist because she wears a veil, she’s 80 years old, she speaks almost no English. But she laughs her head off every time she seems me and the boyfriend “When is the wedding?” she always shouts. “You two need to settle down”, she laughs and then later she will be arguing with anyone who dares about honour killings, or apostasy. She’s 80 years old, never even went to village school. But she knows what human rights are about and she understands them better than some educated young activists.

Peace out.

First, this argument that gay people contribute much more to the AIDS epidemic and various other STDs. When gay “culture” first became nationally recognized (thirty, forty years ago), that was definitely true. I can only assume that the fact that a gay or lesbian couple cannot accidentally get pregnant contributed to the lack of protection. However, a vigorous educational campaign has helped bring this problem down to a more reasonable level, for both homosexual and heterosexual couples. It is safe to say that homosexuals are now little more likely to get AIDS or STDs than anyone else.

Secondly, this argument about incest and homosexuality: several people seem to be of the opinion that you must support the one if you support the other. Someone has already mentioned the effect inbreeding has on our gene pool: in fact, I did a research project once on a conclave of people in Kentucky who have blue skin because their genes were so inbred.

But there are other concerns. Most people think, whether rightly or not, that incest often involves pressure by one party or the other, so banning incest helps to ban rape. If the two parties are both adult and consenting, then in my opinion the law has no real right to interfere, and so yes, we are hypocrites.

Part of the problem is also the fact that even in the so-called secular West, we haven’t, in reality, separated church and state. The original objection to incest, and probably the predominant one still, was that it is banned by the Bible. Again, it is certainly hypocritical of us to make this objection, then slam the Middle East for being against homosexuality because the Quran says it’s wrong.

For the moment, the adult, consenting incestuous couples are in much the same position as homosexual couples. We’re willing to look the other way (for the most part), but they have no legal rights. However, change is in the wind for gay rights, and may affect such incestuous unions as well.

The thing to take away from this, though, is that there are definite biological and legal concerns about incest that are not an issue for gays and lesbians, and that is why I think it isn’t so unreasonable of us to have a problem with incest but not homosexuality.

Muneeb (Saudi Arabia/Pakistan) Wrote:
It is estimated that 25% of suicide attempts are made by gay youth. I too planned my own suicide at 16 assuming that the world would never accept me. It is not being gay that makes you suicidal. It is dealing with cultures around you, your own family, who prefer you to be dead than gay. That is my concern.
MOST teenager’s have had a sucide thought go through their head sometime or another.. and MOST of them come really close to doing it.. its not just gays who think of Suicide.. :S

Even in Australia statistically gay and lesbian youth are about 3 times more likely than a straight kid to attempt or commit suicide. I think this is why reaching out to gay and lesbian youth to let them know that they are not alone, and despite what their family, peers and media say they are a valuable person, is important.

My partners mother from Syria just visited us (she was told we are housemates). At the end of the 3 weeks she told me that I was part of the family now (and the discussion that she initiated with her son made it clear that SHE knew what was going on between us).

At the age of 42, I have found that many people I have met in my life get to know you as a a person, and if and when your being gay becomes relevant, they like you for who you are and accept it.

Its only what you do when you close the bedroom door that is “different”. I dont ask about or judge them for what they do in their bedroom, and dont expect they will judge me. I have never understood why Christian Fundamentalists are so interested in what people do behind their bedroom doors, and they choose to spend millions of dollars in supporting anti-gay politicians (ie the right wing christian cult called Exclusive Brethren).

Anyway, initially I thought that a traditional Syrian mother in her 70s would go crazy if she found out about her sons homosexuality and relationship – but no, she is fine with it – “Just dont tell your father”. Thats because father is VERY WORRIED about what others think… its all about reputation and what he thinks others will think of him and the family.

She would no doubt prefer my partner was “straight” and had kids to carry on the family name, and to look after him when he is old – but thats what I am here for – and why we have superannuation (insurance) – as our Australian society is different to the overwhelming majority of Middle Eastern, Asian and even European cultures where the family is first – and kids support the family.

Even here in Australia many people who are homosexual choose NOT to act on it and take the “hetero” route – marry and have kids. Often they can carry it off for life – but more often than not they cannot “live the lie”, and separate from their spouse and share the kids (or often lose access to them). In the process they affect lives of many around them – and go through a lot of trauma – but hopefully everyone (adults and kids) survives the coming out and usual break up of the family unit.

With education about homosexuality as a valid sexuality, and acceptance of it (or tolerance as a first step on the road to acceptance) many of these people may then have chosen to move forward with a same sex relationship, rather than choose to try to bow to society and family pressure by “appearing” to be straight.

There was another comment in this thread about Iran being a fine place to live for homosexuals.

Mohammad Memarian Wrote:
Homosexuality has a well-documented history in this country, Iran, as well as the whole mother earth. this phenomenon happens very often in Iran, and as I know, nobody has ever been executed or lashed just for being gay or practicing homosexual activites in recent years (yeah, some got executed, but that had raped younger boys). Even a park in tehran, called Parke Daneshjoo or Students’ Park is famous for hosting several male whores.

Unfortunately I think the writer is out of touch.

A Persian friend I have made (who was kept in immigration detention in Australia for 6 years), was running 30 mins late to go to a gathering of some gay friends at a private home in Tehran. As he pulled up in the taxi the police were dragging out the 10 or so other guys who had already arrived. He had heard of this kind of thing before (with people disappearing never to be heard of again – assumedly either being left to rot forever in a jail, or executed). So scared for his life he fled in the clothes he had on his back, accessed his bank accounts to get his money and contacted the people smugglers and made his way via Indonesia to Australia.

Unfortunately that does not sound like a very tolerant country to me – remember recently the leader said in the UN that there are no homosexuals in Iran (maybe because he knows he has driven most of them out of the country with fear).

And unfortunately, a few male whores in a park do not mean a society is “tolerant” (from what I can gather from the current Iranian regime it probably means that they are on the payroll of someone in the police to get information on the clients in order to round them up). Even in the “enlightened west” male prostitutes are not always homosexual, but often heterosexual men who will engage in homosexual acts for money (gay for pay).

It seems in past years Iran HAD been a wonderful enlightened place – but the current regime is certainly on record as not tolerating homosexuals in any form. Changes in regimes/leaders in other countries in the Middle East certainly have led to greater enlightenment for the society, while still retaining the core values of Islam.

I am new to this forum and find it intriguing, and hope that your work can keep the discussions happening, and help in some way to influence public perceptions.

Shahin claimed the movie is part of “a Zionist and American conspiracy” which uses this sort of movie to destroy the moral fabric of society.

alarabiya.net

It is estimated that 25% of suicide attempts are made by gay youth. I too planned my own suicide at 16 assuming that the world would never accept me. It is not being gay that makes you suicidal. It is dealing with cultures around you, your own family, who prefer you to be dead than gay. That is my concern.

MOST teenager’s have had a sucide thought go through their head sometime or another.. and MOST of them come really close to doing it.. its not just gays who think of Suicide.. :S

We lived in Israel and Canada and were accepted by everyone who ever spent more than 5 minutes with us and this includes religious, non-religious, traditional, non-traditional, Muslims, Christians and Jews and even those who thought gay people were disgusting and should be put in concentration camps. My husband comes from a traditional Yemenite/Kurdish family who thought being gay was a disease. They changed their views when he told them he was gay and they have accepted me fully as his partner ever since.

Gay guy also Wrote:

It is estimated that 25% of suicide attempts are made by gay youth. I too planned my own suicide at 16 assuming that the world would never accept me. It is not being gay that makes you suicidal. It is dealing with cultures around you, your own family, who prefer you to be dead than gay.

Would you say then that the perception of intolerance is as big a problem as intolerance itself? In places such as Canada and Israel I mean?