Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Doug Ireland reviews Brian Whitaker's new book, UNSPEAKABLE LOVE: Gay and Lesbian Life in the Middle East:
A few months later, Tayseer was invited into an orange grove for sex by an undercover police agent of the Palestinian Authority, and subsequently arrested. Police told Tayseer that the only way for him to avoid prison was to become a Judas goat, to lure other gay men into sex so that they, too, could be arrested.
When he refused to be police bait in this entrapment scheme, Tayseer was hung by his arms from the ceiling. "A high-ranking officer he didn't know arranged for his release-and then demanded sex as payback."
When Tayseer fled Gaza for Tulkarem, he was eventually re-arrested, and forced to stand in neck-high sewage water with his head covered by a feces-filled sack. During one police interrogation, Tayseer was stripped and forced to sit on a Coke bottle...
You may or may not believe in "gay marriage," but I hope all of us in the West can agree that the penalty for being homosexual should not be anything like what's described in Whitaker's book. Columbia's Joseph Massad (who we've often discussed here) makes an appearance:
In concluding his rebuttal of Massad, Whitaker writes that the Columbia academic and his acolytes present the debate "as a choice between cultural authenticity on the one hand and the adoption of all things Western on the other. In fact, neither is a realistic proposition...
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: Gay and Lesbian Life in the Middle East.
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.solomonia.com/cgi-bin/mt4/mt-renamedtb.cgi/7091
, p.44
Leave a comment to: Gay and Lesbian Life in the Middle East
Subscribe to This Thread Without Leaving a Comment
Comment Info and Policy:
1) You must have Javascript enabled in your browser in order to comment (blame the spammers). If you don't know what that is, you're probably fine.
2) HTML is on, so basic html should work. Raw links will be made auto-clickable, too, so even if you don't know html you can just paste in the link and it should work fine. Keep the "http://" in it.
3) Comments are generally unmoderated, which means I don't necessarily agree with the tone and tenor of everything posted. In fact, sometimes people post things they don't really mean just to make other people look bad. The internet is an anonymous place for the most part. That said...
4) I welcome you to post here. I'd love to have your input, agree, disagree or just offer a different data point, really. If I didn't want any participation, I'd turn off comments. Be aware, however, that this blog and the comments section exist for my entertainment. Therefore, I reserve ALL RIGHTS here, including the right to remove any or all comments on nothing more than a whim. Please don't even bother complaining. I'm the one providing the space and the free news and thought buffet. I don't owe anyone anything.
Anyone who posts here will be treated as my guest. That means I'm happy to be polite as a default, but if anyone is rude to the host they'll be unceremoniously shown the door.
It may pay to recall a famous line from the Tom Selleck magnum opus, Mr. Baseball: "Jack-san, you want Yoji's advice about the babes, you come to Yoji with respect."
5) Enjoy your stay!