Gay-marriage in Meknes

Well according to As-Sabah that is.

2 men held a traditional marriage-ceremony at the tomb(?) of Sidi Ali bin Hamdoush. Complete with henna-ritual, dades and ululation (that has to be the funniest word ever btw).
I bet you 2 takshitas that the story isn’t true or that its exaggerated.

The article is in pdf-format and there is no direct link to it.
But I did manage to make a screencapture of the first part of the article.
I love the main picture btw. A feminine gay ( I assume) in a market. Nothing to do with the actual marriage but good enough to enforce the stereotype. Long live Moroccan journalism

Update: I think I’m a bit sloooooooow today. There is of course a direct link to the 1st page of the newspaper (otherwise I couldn’t make the screencapture, duh!)
Here it is: Link (PDF!)

Reply to a Syrian homosexual

Dear Lina,

I read the interview you had with Esra’a from Mideast Youth a couple of times. And every time I read it, I had mixed feelings.
First of all, I want to say “well done!” and I admire you. It takes a lot of courage and strength to come out as an Arab homosexual. Especially when you still live in the Arab world.
You risked your (social) life to be yourself and free. I can only applaud that.

But as I said, I had mixed feelings when I read your interview. Disappointment, sadness and confusion were those other feelings. Don’t take the following as an attack. You can say and believe whatever you want. But I just want to show you some contradicting comments/remarks you made.

You seem to take a very harsh stance towards other gays who encounter the same prejudices you encounter in your daily life.
You say you don’t agree with homosexuals who like to cross-dress and you even qualify it as “not very normal”
You clearly still fight against the concept of “normal” that is enforced by religious and conservative maniacs but in the meantime you, the “victim” of prejudice, turned into an aggressor by stating that there are limits of what is to be considered normal for gays!
Can’t you see that you’re making the same basic mistake as those religious/conservative maniacs? You’re, in a way, siding with them by saying that what cross-dressers/feminine gays do is not normal. Those maniacs want to enforce their own limits of normal, which they base on their own irrelevant feelings and fairy tales, to create an atmosphere where people are the same without room for any diversity.
You’re trying to do that as well. You’re trying to use your own concept of what you consider to be “a normal gay” to decide what is “good” and what is “bad” gay-activism.
You say that you “want to see people to open their minds and accept humans in all their colors, preferences and forms.”
Shouldn’t start with opening your own mind and accept other kind of gays?
We will never see a less homophobic Middle East if we keep on battling amongst ourselves on what is normal and what not.

Another point of critique is about your last comment. You don’t encourage other Arab gays to come out because you lost your family and others lose their lives.
First, let me tell you that we kind of share the same story. I too got rejected and kicked out of my family house when I came out. I too found a caring family that treats me as their own.
They protected me from the harassment and threats from my own family. And now their funding my education in a foreign country.
But eventually I’m happy with how things went. I’m free and independent to explore and dictate my own course of life.
It is of course a horrible feeling to live without your own family but that is the price we pay.
I encourage other Arab gays to come out as well. We should realize that we will never get accepted if we stay in the closet because of fear.
Coming out is the first step in the whole process of being accepted by our society.
Our stories (of the ones who did have the guts to come out) should be an encouragement for others to come out.
We are the proof that it is possible to be gay, arab, muslim and alive.

cross-posted on Mideast Youth

Interview with a Syrian homosexual (reading tip)

Esra’a of Mideast Youth just posted an interview she had with a Syrian lesbian.

It is really interesting, since it is a good example of how Arab LGBT (with life-experience in the Middle East) perceive gay-activism and homosexuality.

I was planning to write a more extensive blog-post about it today, but I love procrastinating and siesta-ing.
But expect it to show up here somewhere around Friday/Saturday

Link

Eurabian homosexuals

A while ago Eatbees posed a question about homosexuality and Islam.
His question was if it was possible to be a “practicing homosexual” and a “good Muslim” at the same time. He wondered if there was a middle ground whereby Islam and homosexuality could co-exist.

My answer was/is yes on both. You can be a practicing homosexual and a good Muslim. Because both are an individual choice, whether you like it or not. Her Holiness Madonna and God can’t force you to be something you don’t want to be and can’t force you not to be something you want to be.
But I know that this is an opinion that’s being attacked by both Islamic radicals and Cher-loving radical gays.

And yes there is a middle ground, although not very big at the moment. Heterosexuals Muslims and homosexuals can coexist without attacking each other. As I mentioned at Eatbees’ blog, the keyword here is respect. Its not acceptance/endorsement that leads to coexistence. Although acceptance would definitely help.
Respect has a far bigger role to play. People can live next to each other without accepting each others lifestyle.
Let me first explain what I actually mean with acceptance. Acceptance, in this case, means that the Muslims accept the gay lifestyle and homosexuality. Thus saying that Islam doesn’t forbid homosexual acts.
Respect in this case, means that Muslims don’t accept or condone homosexuality. They still think that Islam doesn’t allow homosexual acts but they at least respect the lifestyle. Meaning that they don’t go on a hunt for homosexuals and punish them for their lifestyles.

I think most (ex)-Muslim gays, including me, don’t ask for acceptance but just normal respect.
For example, I can live next to a dog-eating satanist without accepting his way of living. I won’t condone it but I will respect it because clearly that’s how he/she wants to live his/her life.
And that’s what I want when I live in a Muslim country next to a practicing heterosexual Muslim. Or when I lived in a predominantly muslim neighborhood of Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
The problem here is that most Muslims think that respect has to come with acceptance. That when they don’t punish a homosexual that it means that they condone the practice .
And this way of thinking is one of the main reasons why gays still face persecution and uncertainty in Muslim societies.

Eatbees asked me in the comments if I think that the gains made by muslim homosexuals in Europe (where a growing number of them dare to take a stance against the Islamic homophobia) can end up having a positive effect in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).

I thought about that question for some time. And I came to the conclusion that the gains of Muslim homosexuals in Europe won’t have any or little effect in their countries of origin.
Main reason for this is the fact that Muslim homosexuals in Europe fight another battle in another environment then their counterparts in the MENA-region.
We are already accepted and “protected” by our society and governments, we have no fear of being arrested for speaking out. We only fight against the prejudice and the violence within our families.
In the MENA-region homosexuals have to fight against both prejudice and violence coming both from their families as well as their own governments.
This difference in battle makes it difficult for European Muslim gays to help the ones in the MENA-region.
Actually, we just don’t have the experience in that field.

The gays in the MENA-region have their own battle to fight. They know their society and their government, they know how everything works.
The heavy burden is on them. Relying on gay Muslims from Europe would be disastrous.
Heterosexual (conservative) Muslims and their governments would perceive this as yet another intrusion of the “Western world”. Resulting in an even bigger denial of gay-rights.
The gay Muslims in Europe would be unable to take proper actions because of a lack of knowledge within and about the region.
We are the sons and daughters of immigrants. We may think we know the country of our parents but we only know the holiday-version.

We can provide basic help and financial, mental and logistical assistance. But we can’t solve the problems and a situation which we never experienced in its totality.
That is something the gays in MENA have to do themselves.

Crossposted to Mideast-Youth

Iraqi gays still hunted down

Apparently, Iraqi gays are still being murdered by murderous wacko-islamic radicals.

And according to Ali Hili, leader of an Iraqi gay-rights group, some ministers of the Iraqi government are “colluding with death squads responsible for the “sexual cleansing” of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) Iraqis”

We constantly hear about Iraqi Christians, Sunnis and Shia being massacred by wacko-islamic radicals. But what about the homosexuals? How come they’re invisible in the eyes of the Western and Arab media?
Ali Hili states that these death-squads from the Sadr and Badr militias know what they’re doing. They target not only “normal” homosexuals but also LGBT-activists that report homophobic incidents. The abduction of 5 activists is an example of this.
The United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq recently stated that there were organised campaigns to slaughter gays in Iraq.

The Iraqi government criticized the report stating that Iraq simply can’t give basic human rights to homosexuals simply because it’s Iraq.
Apparently, the Iraqi government believes that not killing gays equals giving them the right to marry.

And the worst thing is that the UK and US government refuse to give Iraqi gays asylum on grounds of persecution.
So far, for having the moral high ground.