Dreams Into Lightning 2

Against Homophobia

Paul Burston at Time Out London:

Because, quite frankly, I'm sick of it. Sick of hearing that friends have been intimidated. Sick of being told that parts of London are a 'gay-free zone'. Sick of the right-wing columnists who fan the flames of homophobia. Sick of the left-wing apologists who make excuses on the basis of culture or religion.

In the last few years there have been more and more reports of homophobic incidents in Tower Hamlets, often involving attacks on gay men by gangs of young Bangladeshis. In one case, a gay man was stabbed seven times and is now paralysed. When his Bangladeshi attacker was jailed, a gang stormed the George and Dragon pub, a popular haunt for the gay community.

A few weeks ago, for the second time, stickers appeared close to the George and Dragon and other gay venues in the area, quoting passages from the Koran and declaring the borough a 'Gay-Free Zone'. The stickers bore no clue as to who might be behind them, but some people questioned the authenticity of the flyers, claiming they were the work of an extremist right-wing group and were designed to incite Islamophobia. What we do know is that people passing through Whitechapel High Street are often handed leaflets containing homophobic sentiments. The real question is why so few people seem willing to talk about it.

When the problem in east London first began making headlines, a Guardian columnist argued that 'It is time for gay people to begin engaging with the Bangladeshi community in Tower Hamlets and not simply to see them as the colourful backdrop to their multicultural existence.' Yes, you read that right. Gay people brought this on themselves. Similar sentiments were expressed last week on Facebook. One gay man warned that 'we will reap what we sow', as if the problem was created by gay people and not, say, by Islamist extremists. ...

Go read it all. Via a friend at LiveJournal.

No comment.

MK Benizri: Homosexuality Causes Earthquakes

Kuwait Makes Cross-Dressing a Crime

I spent seven months in the desert for this?

(New York, January 17, 2008) – Authorities should immediately release more than a dozen persons jailed under Kuwait’s new dress-code law, Human Rights Watch said today. The law, approved by the National Assembly on December 10, 2007, criminalizes people who “imitate the appearance of the opposite sex.”
“The wave of arrests in the past month shows exactly why Kuwait should repeal this repressive law,” said Joe Stork, deputy director of the Middle East division at Human Rights Watch. “Kuwaiti authorities should immediately drop all charges against those arrested, and investigate charges of ill-treatment in detention.”

Security officials have arrested at least 14 people in Kuwait City since the National Assembly approved an addition (Article 199 bis) to Article 198 of the Criminal Code. The amendment states that “any person committing an indecent act in a public place, or imitating the appearance of a member of the opposite sex, shall be subject to imprisonment for a period not exceeding one year or a fine not exceeding one thousand dinars [US$3,500].”

Dress codes based solely on gender stereotypes restrict both freedom of expression and personal autonomy, Human Rights Watch said. The only known targets of the new Kuwaiti law have been transgender people – individuals born into one gender who deeply identify themselves with another. Kuwait allows transgender people neither to change their legal identity to match the gender in which they live, nor to adapt their physical appearance through gender reassignment surgery. The new law, coming after months of controversy, aims at further restricting their rights and completely eliminating their public presence. In September 2007, the newspaper Al Arabiya reported a new government campaign “to combat the growing phenomenon of gays and transsexuals” in Kuwait.

On December 18, 2007, Al Watan newspaper announced the arrests of three people at a police checkpoint in Salimeya, 10 km southeast of Kuwait City. Days later, police arrested three more people at a checkpoint in Kuwait City. On December 21, security officials detained another three people on Restaurant Street in the Hawalli district, 8 km south of Kuwait City. The same day, two other people were detained at another police checkpoint. Authorities have reportedly arrested three more people in January, one in a coffee shop and two in a taxi stopped by police. Police arrested all 14 because they believed they were “imitating the appearance of the opposite sex.”

All the people detained are being held in Tahla Prison. Friends of the accused told Human Rights Watch that police and prison guards subjected the detainees to physical and psychological abuse. Al-Rai newspaper quoted police as saying that the “confused [men were] deposited in the special ward,” and that the prison administration ordered guards to shave their heads as a form of punishment. The paper quoted a prison administrator as saying “this step [shaving heads] follows the passage of the law concerning men who imitate the appearance of women.” Friends report that at least three of the prisoners were beaten and one was left unconscious. Authorities deported one Saudi Arabian national among those arrested, to face trial in that country. None of the detainees has access to legal representation.

Transgender people in Kuwait tell Human Rights Watch that they are now afraid to leave their homes – even for work or to meet basic needs – for fear of arrest and ill-treatment. Arbitrary and intrusive gender-based codes for acceptable demeanor and dress violate the rights to privacy and to free expression protected under international law. The beatings and ill-treatment to which authorities reportedly subjected the prisoners violate internationally recognized prohibitions against torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

“The intent of this measure is clear: to eradicate the freedoms and visibility of people who already face discrimination daily,” said Stork. “When states impose dress codes, whether on women or on men, they deny their basic rights to both privacy and free expression.”

In a December 31 private letter to Kuwait’s minister of justice, Abdallah Abd al-Rahman al-Matuq, and to the speaker of the National Assembly, Jassem Al-Kharafi, Human Rights Watch urged the government to release the detainees and drop charges against them. In the same letter, Human Rights Watch called on the government to work toward repealing the recent addition to Article 198.

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which Kuwait has acceded, sets forth the prohibition against torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment (Article 7). Article 14 of the same treaty affirms the right to counsel. The treaty also bars interference with the right to privacy (Article 17) and protects freedom of expression (Article 19). Kuwait has the obligation to respect and ensure these rights, and to do so in a non-discriminatory manner, as set forth in Article 2.

The Yogyakarta Principles on the Application of International Human Rights Law in relation to Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity, adopted by a group of 29 experts on international human rights law in 2006, calls upon states to “take all necessary legislative, administrative and other measures to ensure the full enjoyment of the right to express identity or personhood, including through speech, deportment, dress, bodily characteristics, choice of name or any other means” (Principle 19[c]).

HT: Or Does It Explode

H.R. 1592

In support of H.R. 1592. I'm supporting HR 1592, the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007.

There seem to be a lot of objections to it from the conservative world, some reasonable, most (in my opinion) not. In the interests of cogency, I'll begin with the reasonable objections.

The basic argument against H.R. 1592 is the argument against "hate crimes" legislation in general: that it clutters the lawbooks with unnecessary and redundant laws, and that it differentiates between "classes" of citizens (in this case, crime victims) - thus enshrining the very inequality it purports to fight. What is needed, the conservative argument goes, is not special laws to protect certain classes of people, but better enforcement of existing laws against common crime.

I have some respect for this position, but I think it misses a couple of key points. First, the purpose of hate crimes laws is to target bias-motivated crime; that is, it's the motive of the aggressor, not the identity of the vicitm, that's the determining factor. Now you may agree or disagree with that on principle, but there's no basis for the claim that the law operates on the basis of the victim's identity. Here's what HR 1592 says:

Sec. 249. Hate crime acts

`(a) In General-

`(1) OFFENSES INVOLVING ACTUAL OR PERCEIVED RACE, COLOR, RELIGION, OR NATIONAL ORIGIN- Whoever, whether or not acting under color of law, willfully causes bodily injury to any person or, through the use of fire, a firearm, or an explosive or incendiary device, attempts to cause bodily injury to any person, because of the actual or perceived race, color, religion, or national origin of any person--

`(A) shall be imprisoned not more than 10 years, fined in accordance with this title, or both; and

`(B) shall be imprisoned for any term of years or for life, fined in accordance with this title, or both, if--

`(i) death results from the offense; or

`(ii) the offense includes kidnaping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill.

`(2) OFFENSES INVOLVING ACTUAL OR PERCEIVED RELIGION, NATIONAL ORIGIN, GENDER, SEXUAL ORIENTATION, GENDER IDENTITY, OR DISABILITY-

`(A) IN GENERAL- Whoever, whether or not acting under color of law, in any circumstance described in subparagraph (B), willfully causes bodily injury to any person or, through the use of fire, a firearm, or an explosive or incendiary device, attempts to cause bodily injury to any person, because of the actual or perceived religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability of any person--

`(i) shall be imprisoned not more than 10 years, fined in accordance with this title, or both; and

`(ii) shall be imprisoned for any term of years or for life, fined in accordance with this title, or both, if--

`(I) death results from the offense; or

`(II) the offense includes kidnaping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill.

There's a lot more at the link, of course. Now I think the language of "actual or perceived race, etc." is a problem because it seems to suggest the opposite, i.e. that the victim's race (or other status) is itself part of the law's concern. It would be better if the text read only "perceived race, etc." because it's the perp's perceptions that we care about. But a little farther down you can find the following:

`(b) Certification Requirement- No prosecution of any offense described in this subsection may be undertaken by the United States, except under the certification in writing of the Attorney General, the Deputy Attorney General, the Associate Attorney General, or any Assistant Attorney General specially designated by the Attorney General that--

`(1) such certifying individual has reasonable cause to believe that the actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability of any person was a motivating factor underlying the alleged conduct of the defendant;

which ought to clear things up. Bottom line: the victim doesn't automatically get to claim "bias crime" just because he or she is a different race (or whatever) from the perpetrator.

The second point I want to make is that bias laws don't just apply to certain groups or "minorities". But don't take my word for it. Here's a clip from the FBI's 2004 hate crime statistics:

Racial bias motivated crimes against 5,119 hate crime victims of single-bias incidents. Nearly 68 percent (67.9) of the victims were the object of an anti-black bias. Slightly more than 20 percent (20.1) were victims of an anti-white bias, 5.2 percent were victimized because of an anti-Asian or Pacific Islander bias, and 2.0 percent were victims due to an anti-American Indian or Alaskan native bias. Victims of anti-multiple races bias, i.e., groups in which more than one race was represented, comprised 4.9 percent of hate crime victims.

In 2004, law enforcement agencies reported that there were 1,586 victims of crimes motivated by a religious bias (single-bias incidents only). Most (67.8 percent) were victimized because of an anti-Jewish bias. An anti-Islamic bias motivated offenses against 12.7 percent of victims, and an anti-Catholic bias provoked crimes against 4.3 percent. Victims of an anti-Protestant bias made up 3.0 percent of victims of hate crimes resulting from a religious bias; other religions, 9.3 percent; and multiple religions, group, 2.5 percent. The remaining 0.4 percent of hate crime victims were targeted because of the offender’s anti-Atheism or anti-Agnosticism bias.

In terms of single-bias incidents motivated by a sexual-orientation bias, law enforcement reported 1,482 victims, most of which (60.9 percent) were victims of crimes motivated by an anti-male homosexual bias. In addition, 21.2 percent of victims were targets of an anti-homosexual (male and female) bias. Slightly more than 14 percent (14.3) were victims of an anti-female homosexual bias, 2.4 percent were victimized because of an anti-heterosexual bias, and 1.2 percent were targets of an anti-bisexual bias.

Obviously I've added the bolding here. The point is that phrases like "race" and "sexual orientation" mean what they say; the law recognizes a bias crime as a bias crime. So, does anti-bias law protect straight white Protestant males? Yes.

You can go to the Wikipedia article on hate crime laws in the United States for an informative, readable, jargon-free roundup of information on the subject. Here's what Wiki says about federal law:

Current statutes permit federal prosecution of hate crimes committed on the basis of a person's race, color, religion, or nation origin when engaging in a federally protected activity (see 1969 law, infra). Legislation is currently pending that would add gender, sexual orientation, gender-identity, and disability to this list, as well as remove the prerequisite that the victim be engaging in a federally protected activity ...

Now, I'd originally planned to spend a lot of space rebutting Andrew Jaffee's rant at Israpundit but I don't think it's really worth the effort. In Jaffee's favor, though, I'll point out that the section he quotes about eliminating "the badges, incidents, and relics of slavery" has been stricken from the text of the bill, and rightly so, in my opinion; and as I've already said, I have a problem with the "real or perceived" business for the same reason Jaffee does.

Jaffee goes on to quote a WND article which alleges that 1592 is

similar to a state law that already has been used to send grandmothers to jail for their "crime" of sharing the Gospel of Jesus on a Philadelphia public sidewalk.

I'm not familiar with the specifics of this case, but I take everything WingNutDaily says with a grain of salt. So I'll just zip right to my next main point, and that's on religion, free speech, and homosexuality.

As I posted two years ago, I absolutely support the right of social conservatives to exercise their right to free speech, regardless of whether their views about homosexuality are the same as mine. In the 2005 incident, students at South Windsor High School (my old school, BTW) were denied the right to wear T-shirts with Biblical quotes about homosexuality on the grounds that it was "hate speech".

But the business of "hate speech" is entirely different from the "hate crimes" I've discussed above. In the Connecticut case, school officials acted arbitrarily and high-handedly (and unencumbered by any legal system) to enforce an ad-hoc speech code on their students. No acts of violence or property damage were committed or threatened by the conservative students; they were simply expressing their beliefs about homosexuality, in the context of an ongoing debate over pending gay-rights legislation in the state. (That bill was later signed into law by Republican Governor Jodi Rell, making Connecticut the first state in the US to recognize civil unions through the legislative process).

Now back to hate crimes. A hate crime is, by definition, an act which is already criminal in and of itself - threat, vandalism, assault, murder - and which is legally exacerbated by the bias motive. No hate crime law is going to make it illegal to express your belief that homosexuality is wrong, immoral, or a sin - unless your idea of "expressing your belief" means doing harm to somebody else. If you don't know the difference, maybe you need to sign up for a refresher course in Civilized Debate 101.

But here's the thing. There are people out there who are unable or unwilling to draw that very distinction. Do I have to spell it out for you? Do I have to name names?

There are people out there who would like to cut your head off just because you don't believe in the same religion they do. And their views about "lifestyle choices" would make any Baptist preacher look like a free-love apostle by comparison. Regardless of what CAIR may think this legislation will do for them, hate-crime laws are there to make life harder for people who want to do violence based on prejudice - and we in the counter-jihad world ought to remember that and use it to our advantage.

Think of Ilan Halimi. Was he killed because he was a Jew? Does it matter? I think he was, and I think it does. Now think of the immigrant women in places like the Netherlands who live in fear of honor killings if they step out of line. A crime is a crime is a crime, you say? Hmmm.

All right then. This is turning into a long post, so it's time for my bottom line.

Maybe it bugs you that the same law that protects Jews and Christians from religious persecution, might also protect lesbian and gay people from homophobic hate crimes. Well, think about this. HR 1592 is about the crime, not about the victim. It's about the use of gender to justify violence and religion to justify killing gays.

H.R. 1592 isn't there to tell you what to think or what to say. It's not there to tell a preacher in a church or an imam in a mosque that he can't speak about his beliefs on homosexuality. What it does do is bring down a whole lot of firepower on people who use certain kinds of hate to justify illegal and immoral acts against other people.

If you feel that cramps your style, then maybe we'd better have a long talk.

Counterpoint. Via a mailing list, George Will gives an excellent presentation of the case against hate-crime laws. Well worth reading.

Update. On the liberal side, there's some excellent debate in the comments thread at this post on Feministe.

Gay Iranian Activist Mani Zaniar - "Out in Iran"

CBC spotlights Iranian gay activist:

He is followed by secret police. His friends are routinely whipped. Some are executed. His name is Mani Zaniar and he is the leader of Iran’s secret gay rights movement.

It is the most dangerous civil rights movement in the world. And for the first time ever, Mani, and many others, have risked their lives to come on camera and tell their story.

In this startling and unique documentary, Out in Iran, we go to Iran and get the world’s first look at life inside Iran’s persecuted gay community. We meet an astonishing group of courageous people with heartbreaking stories.

HT: Or Does It Explode

Gay Palestinian Beaten at Pride Rally

Via American Thinker, Bookworm Room links to this story at SFGate:

A group of gay Palestinian Americans canceled a planned pride march in East Jerusalem on Friday after one of them was beaten unconscious by a local man who said he was from the Waqf Muslim religious authority.

The beating incident occurred on the same day an Israeli gay pride rally went ahead as scheduled, though without a planned march through city streets. The march had been called off after threats by religious and right-wing opponents to mount huge counterdemonstrations. Only minor violence marred the event. ...

In the East Jerusalem beating, two men -- one wielding a knife -- came looking for the group of gay Palestinian Americans who were staying at the Faisal Hostel near the Damascus Gate of the Old City. One of the assailants identified himself as being from the Waqf, the clerical trust that administers Muslim religious sites in the city.

"I'm pretty terrified right now," said Daoud, an MBA student from Detroit who declined to give his full name. "We left the hostel immediately, but when my friend went back to collect some things, they were waiting for him. They asked if he was with 'the homos' and then started beating him." ...

Daoud said nine gay Palestinian Americans had come to Jerusalem to join the pride march. "Maybe I was just being naive. I heard about the pride rally, and I thought it would be nice for us to do something together as a gay community," he said. "We got a different kind of reception instead."

In America, he said, "you have some tolerance and appreciation and understanding of what it means to be gay and to be a Palestinian. We're discovering the hard way it's not so acceptable here."

Remarks. I won't adopt the sneering tone I've seen some conservative commentators take toward incidents like this, as if it's all a big joke. But it does speak volumes about the gulf between free societies and repressive ones. I'm glad Daoud wasn't injured more seriously. And I'm glad these guys are waking up to the homophobia that's still rampant and dangerous in the Arab-Muslim world - even if it was a rude awakening.

Iran Hangs Gay Man in Public

Iran Focus:

Tehran, Iran, Nov. 14 - A gay Iranian man was hanged in public on Tuesday in the western city of Kermanshah on the charge of sodomy.

Shahab Darvishi was charged with organising a “corruption ring”, deliberate assault, and “lavat”, which means homosexual relationship between two men or sodomy, the official news agency IRNA reported.

Darvishi was hanged in the evening in Kermanshah’s “Freedom Square” in front of hundreds of people, the report said.

Under Iran’s Islamic Penal Code, homosexuality between consenting adults is a capital crime and official Iranian sources express hostility to homosexual practices. A state radio commentary on March 7, 2005 criticised gay marriages in Western countries. Ayatollah Ebrahim Amini, an influential cleric, said in his Friday-prayer sermon in Qom that gay and lesbian marriages reflect a weakness of Western culture, state television reported on July 13, 2002. Ayatollah Ali Meshkini in his Friday-prayer sermon in Qom criticised the German Green Party for being pro-homosexual, state television reported on April 29, 2000.

Jerusalem Gay Pride Wrap-Up

In the end, the event was held in a stadium.

CNN:

A few thousand gays and their supporters rallied in Jerusalem on Friday under heavy security, going ahead with a festival that has sparked religious protests and highlighted deep divisions in Israeli society.

... Organizers had planned a gay pride street parade but cancelled it after police said they needed to beef up security to guard against threatened Palestinian attacks following a deadly Israeli army shelling attack in Gaza this week.

Ultra-Orthodox Jews had also threatened to disrupt the march through the holy city. There have been nightly protests in Jerusalem's religious neighborhoods against the parade.

...Police said they arrested several religious youths near the venue who were carrying knives and brass knuckles. There were also a few minor scuffles between right-wing opponents of the event and gay rights activists in the city but little violence.

Arutz Sheva:

Event organizers reported that some 4,000 people attended Friday’s gay pride event in the Givat Ram area of the capital. About 3,000 policemen were on hand to maintain law and order. There were no serious disturbances reported.

Gay.com:

Police security worries spiraled after an errant Israeli artillery shells killed 19 civilians in Gaza on Wednesday and Palestinian militants vowed to carry out suicide bombings in Israel in retaliation.

Responding to those concerns, Pride organizers agreed to turn the parade into a rally, held inside the fenced-in stadium of Jerusalem's Hebrew University, which was ringed by mounted police and anti-riot units.

This article at Time points out some things you should know about Israeli culture:

The fuss over the Gay Pride Parade also exposed some of the seismic cracks inside Israeli society, where modern, secular values collide with fiercely defended religious traditions. The sharp Tel Aviv-Jerusalem rivalry illustrates this divide. Tel Aviv prides itself on its hip nightclubs and a laid-back, cosmopolitan attitude, while an hour's drive away, in some Jerusalem neighborhoods, ultra-orthodox men re-create the customs of 17th century Poland and wear long, black waistcoats and beaver hats that make them broil in the Mediterranean sun.

Making up half of the Holy City's Jewish residents, the ultra-Orthodox ride their own buses, send their kids to religious schools and have the power to close off their neighborhoods to cars on the Sabbath. Any Tel Aviv visitor wandering into these austere communities in shorts and a T-shirt on the Sabbath runs the risk of getting clobbered by a rock.

Even Jerusalem's gays are more subdued than Tel Aviv's. Organizer Canetti says she asked Tel Aviv's participants to tone down their sexy costumes. "We're not having floats or naked men flashing their asses," she says. "We just want to tell people, hey, we're here. We have a right to exist."

Now for my thoughts.

As regular readers of this site know, I originally opposed the Jerusalem parade because I feared it would result in a net setback for gay rights in Israel, and because I was worried about the negative image of Israeli Jews that would likely result from the haredi protests.

But the gay marchers (who, as the previous article indicates, did not copy the notoriously provocative fashions of gay pride events elsewhere) are not responsible for the behavior of the haredi (so-called "ultra-orthodox") Jews. If religious zealots chose to throw a collective temper tantrum in front of the world, they would have nobody but themselves to blame for the resulting damage to the image of Jews everywhere.

The gay pride event challenged Jerusalem's traditional religious community to grow up. It was never a question of whether the hareidi orthodox would approve the event - no one would expect them to - but how they would choose to express their disapproval. Ironically, while reading descriptions of the rioting and the self-justifications of the hareidim, I was once again reminded of the parallel between the insular worldview of Israel's orthodox and that of American left-wingers, which I previously explored here:

Like the religious Zionist movement, the American Left was the only segment of society that was strenghtened, not weakened, by the last war - in our case, Vietnam. Over the next three decades, the liberal movement - that is, the increasingly dogmatic ideology that called itself "liberalism" - consolidated its hold on our media, our educational and cultural institutions. Liberal communities like Berkeley and neighborhoods like, well, the one I live in, ensured that left-leaning Americans could live comfortably without having to rub elbows with "red-staters".

Liberal Americans, guided by a "deep internal sense of being in the right without asking for or needing external confirmation," built and strengthened their own communities but rarely stopped to ask themselves what they might learn from their conservative neighbors...

The compromises made by each side in this controversy are part of the necessary process of Israel's development as a nation. Even the most basic steps - renouncing lewdness and violence - are evidence that the process continues as it must. In the end it can only strengthen Israel's religious community, its gay community, and its society as a whole.

Finally, let me leave you with this article about Israeli lesbian Avigail Sperber, which comes by way of Sarah at Israelity:

Avigail Sperber, 33, is a film director and cinematographer. She has made several documentaries and a short movie, and is currently working on her first full-length film. Her father is Rabbi Prof. Daniel Sperber, who teaches Talmud at Bar-Ilan University and received the Israel Prize for his achievements in his field. For many years, he chaired the public council for state religious Jewish education. Sperber found it especially difficult to accept the disclosure of his daughter's sexual identity. However, his public position, Avigail stresses, was never a factor in her family's acceptance of her lesbianism. ...

For Avigail, the high point in her family's acceptance of her was reached a year ago, when her younger sister Shuli, who had become ultra-Orthodox, was to be married to a young man who had also become ultra-Orthodox. It was considered only natural to invite both Avigail and her present partner, film director Netali Baron (whose film, "Metamorphosis," about four rape victims, was screened this week on Israel Television's Channel 1). Hannah felt this was not enough and began inviting other lesbian friends of Avigail's whose families had severed contact with them. ("Some girls are no longer welcome in their own homes, even on holidays, even without their partner.")

Two years ago, Hannah started a support group for the religious parents of homosexual/lesbian children (fathers were invited, but only the mothers actually attended). Monthly meetings were held at the Sperber home in the Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem's Old City. Over the past few months they have not met, but Hannah said this week that the controversy generated by the gay pride parade is a good reason to reactivate the group.

Hannah: "Initially, I attended a parental support group at the Open House [a center for the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender, or GLBT, community in Jerusalem]. However, some parents didn't like going there. That's why I launched the group in my home. There are various levels of attitude with respect to the children in this group. One mother, who's very extreme, said she wouldn't invite her daughter to the weddings or other occasions of her siblings. Another mother, a widow, moved me when she declared that she loved her homosexual son very much. Her greatest fear was that he would stop being religious...

Read the rest at the link.

At its best, Israel stands as a model of what a free and democratic society in the Middle East could be. It can, in effect, say to its Arab and Muslim neighbors: "This is what democracy looks like."

For all related posts, please go to this category archive: Jerusalem Pride 2006.

Condi Ticks Off Theocons

Baptist Press, via Timbre of a Timefree Mind:

Conservative Christians are upset over comments made by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during a State Department ceremony to install Mark Dybul, an open homosexual, as the nation’s new global AIDS coordinator.

With first lady Laura Bush standing with her Oct. 10, Rice welcomed Dybul’s family -- which she introduced as his “partner,” Jason Claire, and his “mother-in-law,” Claire’s mother. As Dybul was sworn in, Claire held the Bible.

Several conservatives spoke against the appointment of a homosexual man to an ambassador-level role of stopping the spread of AIDS, and many objected to the “mother-in-law” reference.

“That’s astonishing that that fact would be underscored, highlighted by the Secretary of State,” Tom Minnery of Focus on the Family Action said. “This is very provocative and very disappointing.”

BWAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

Rice’s chief of staff called to tell Minnery it was a mix-up and someone was supposed to check on the mother-in-law status but didn’t.

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, doesn’t believe it was a mistake because “the U.S. State Department is in the business of diplomacy and avoiding faux pas.” He added in his Oct. 16 Washington Update e-mail that in the “world of protocol, verbal miscues are anathema.”

Waaaaaah.

Peter Sprigg, vice president for policy at FRC, said Rice’s comments were “profoundly offensive,” especially considering the Bush administration’s support of a federal marriage amendment to protect traditional marriage. He also objected to having a homosexual implement Bush’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.

“We have to face the fact that putting a homosexual in charge of AIDS policy is a bit like putting the fox in charge of the hen house,” Sprigg said.... If we are not willing to say that men should not engage in sex with other men, then we are really not willing to tackle the root causes of the AIDS problem.”

Golly, I'm telling you, this guy's call on "profoundly offensive" carries a LOT of weight with me ........

GWOT: The Gay War On Terror

Netherlands grants asylum to lesbian and gay Iranians. Via the LiveJournal postqueer community, Human Rights Watch reports:

In a major policy shift, the Dutch government’s recognition that lesbian and gay Iranians are a “special group” facing persecution at home and deserving protection in the Netherlands sets an example for other European states of their legal responsibility not to return people to the risk of torture, ill-treatment or execution, Human Rights Watch said today.

Human Rights Watch, which worked closely with the Dutch lesbian and gay organization COC on the issue, applauded this change in policy by the Dutch government.

“The Dutch government has affirmed its international legal obligations in asserting that it will not send gay and lesbian Iranian asylum seekers to a country where they face the risk of torture or execution,” said Scott Long, director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights Program at Human Rights Watch. “The priority now is to ensure that this policy is implemented fully and fairly, and that no one in the Netherlands is sent back to face torture.”

Last year, Dutch authorities imposed a moratorium on deportations of failed LGBT asylum seekers to Iran after reports of executions there for homosexual conduct. But in February, Dutch Immigration Minister Rita Verdonk first announced her intention to lift the moratorium, stating that, “It appears that there are no cases of an execution on the basis of the sole fact that someone is homosexual. ... For homosexual men and women it is not totally impossible to function in society, although they should be wary of coming out of the closet too openly.”

After strong protests from Dutch civil society and international human rights organizations including Human Rights Watch, however, Verdonk reinstated the ban for a further six months, pending a review of conditions in Iran. ...

Manchester, England, imam approves killing of gays. Bruce at Gay Patriot: 'I’m not shocked by this, but since some of you who think America is the enemy might be, I post this for your education. This comes courtesy of an email from a real gay civil rights group — Outrage – based in London.

Manchester’s leading Imam has confirmed that he thinks the execution of sexually active gay men is justified. Mr. Arshad Misbahi, who is based at the Manchester Central Mosque, confirmed his views in a conversation to Dr John Casson, a local psychotherapist.

Dr Casson said: “I asked him if the execution of gay Muslims in Iran and Iraq was an acceptable punishment in Sharia law, or the result of culture, not religion. He told me that in a true Islamic state, such punishments were part of Islam: if the person had had a trial, at which four witnesses testified that they had seen the actual homosexual acts.”

“I asked him what would be the British Muslim view? He repeated that in an Islamic state these punishments were justified. They might result in the deaths of thousands but if this deterred millions from having sex, and spreading disease, then it was worthwhile to protect the wider community.”'

Bruce adds: 'I don’t recall ever hearing a leading American Christian leader calling for gays to be executed. But let’s not let the facts get in the way of the blind rage of the American Left that would rather use the US Constitution as a “suicide pact” than stand up for and protect this nation.' Here's the link to OutRage!, founded by Peter Tatchell and others.

Commentary. The title of this post is slightly ironic: with a very few exceptions, there is, strictly speaking, no organized "gay war on terror". And that's sad.

Gay rights organizations in the West have been very effective in overturning discriminatory legislation and building a strong community - and that's all to the good.

But today's news items remind us - or should remind us - that a virulent and growing strain of homophobia is threatening us, and it's not on the radar of most Western gay groups. It should be.

In future posts I plan to talk about the nexus between gay rights and the war on terror. That's a theme that has always been implicit in the mission of Dreams Into Lightning; now I feel it's time to deal with it a little more directly.

One final comment. There are many different views of the concept of the "gay community". One recent message on a listserv I belong to read in part, 'Why the use of the words 'gay community' as a replacement for homosexual activity.' Another said, 'Even when I was younger and not fully self-identified as a Republican, I always thought it was a crock of s__t to base ones identity and life on such a trivial thing as sexual orientation.'

I think there's always the danger of over-identifying with any group, be it political, ethnic, gender, a sexual minority, or what have you. And people are different: a sense of group identity or "community" is going to be more important for some people than for others. I am not going to get into the meta-debate about the relative merits of individual versus group identity; that falls under the category of "side issues" which I won't pursue here.

I do think it's important to at least recognize the role that group membership and identification plays in our lives - whether it be liberal, conservative, gay, straight, man, woman, or whatever - because our membership in groups (conscious or not) reflects and amplifies our power as individuals and helps us to change the world.