Pakistani Drag Queen Defies U.S.

Begum Nawazish Ali - Drag Queen Defies U.S.

Lahore, Pakistan - "I'm a drag queen, darling…not an extremist…and I still say if Pakistanis had more self-respect, we'd be even more anti-American," says Ali Saleem, who glosses his lips and dons a sari each week to interview celebrities and politicians on his TV program Begum Nawazish Ali, a talk show sensation in Pakistan. "I'm not speaking religion; it's common sense."

From politics to culture, Ali says American intervention in Pakistan has “brought nothing but sadness” by supporting dictators and rendering Pakistan’s people impotent, constantly looking to the outside world, particularly the U.S., for help solving its own problems.

Article and video here.

UK LGBT Group Protests 2014 Commonwealth Games in Nigeria

Gays protest CW games

The UK-based gay rights group Outrage, and affiliated Nigerian groups, have spoken out against a bid by the Nigerian authorities to host the 2014 Commonwealth Games.

"It would not be right for the 2014 Commonwealth Games to be held in Nigeria, given the country's appalling human rights record, including its systematic persecution of lesbian and gay Nigerians," said Davis Mac-Iyalla, founder and leader of the gay Christian group, Changing Attitude Nigeria.

Continued...

N.Y. Editor's Gay Travels in the Muslim World

‘In the United Arab Emirates, men greet each other with nose rubbing,’ says editor Michael Luongo, who snapped the image of this Dubai billboard for clothing. ‘It’s not a gay thing at all but the perfect example of different intimacy boundaries among Arab men vs. Western men.’Writer/editor Michael Luongo is all too familiar with the cultural prejudices he confronts in his new book, “Gay Travels in the Muslim World.” For a long time he held them himself.

N.Y. Editor’s Gay Travels in Muslim World

By Erline Andrews
Friday, August 17, 2007

“I was raised in an America that taught me to hate Muslims,” he writes in the preface of “Gay Travels,” a compilation of essays from Muslim and non-Muslim contributors edited by Luongo and put out last month by Harrington Parks Press as part of its Out in the World series. “When I was in grade school I was shown pictures of dead Israeli babies, blown up by terrorists, and told, ‘This is what Muslims do.’... It should not be a surprise then that I grew up afraid of anything tinged with the hint of being Muslim or Middle Eastern—the people especially.”

Luongo, a freelance journalist whose involvement in tourism and travel began in academia, overcame his fears to become an authority on the Middle East. He calls Afghanistan one of his favorite places to visit. He’s written about the country for the New York Times and Bloomberg News and has just returned from a month-long assignment in Iraq.

“Gay Travels in the Muslim World” takes the reader from the New Jersey suburb where Luongo grew up to Los Angeles, across the world to Bangladesh, and many places in between, showing Muslim men as thwarted dreamers, as conflicted sons, brothers and husbands and, yes, as participants in gay sexual liaisons. But, as Luongo told the New York Blade in an interview following his standing-room-only event at The LGBT Center, he wants “Gay Travels” to reach an audience far beyond that of pleasure-seekers.

Tell us about the process of putting together “Gay Travels in the Muslim World.” Did you have particular authors in mind when you started, particular issues, particular countries? How did these change as the project progressed?

I’d been getting a lot of feedback from people that they wanted such a book. With 9/11, with war in Afghanistan, with the war in Iraq, I felt that it was necessary, and there was so much gay material in the media any way. We started the process for this book in 2004. There were select people I did have in mind. As I published more on all of this, people started contacting me. I always wanted Richard Ammon, who runs GlobalGayz.com, to do a story. I don’t agree with his story—he writes about a friend who was murdered in Morocco—which really recommends people not travel so much within this part of the world. But I felt it was very important to be included. You know what I was hoping for, but did not get? Stories out of Detroit. The largest Muslim community in the United States is in Detroit. What I did wind up getting was an L.A. story. There’s a huge Muslim community in Los Angeles.

You’ve spoken about the wide spectrum of homosexual behavior and attitudes to homosexuality that you found in your travels to the Middle East. Can you elaborate?

I’ve always stressed that “to do” is not necessarily “to be” in the Muslim world. The Muslim world is also so broad—it’s the suburbs of Detroit, it’s Malaysia. I facetiously used Condoleezza Rice’s definition of the Greater Middle East: everything from Morocco to Indonesia. What surprised me most was that, because male intimacy is normal, you can find that sex between men is not necessarily frowned on in most Muslim countries. The gay identity is the problem.

Is a gay rights movement active in these countries?

You have it in Turkey. You have it in Iran. You had it in Iraq—but now that’s in exile. In Afghanistan you just don’t have it. In Jordan there are gay activists. Egypt certainly does have gay activists. I want to make this very clear: When I say the problem is “to be” and not “to do,” I’m not saying people shouldn’t have gay rights in these countries. I’m saying that that’s where the conflict arises. So the prejudice is not against the behavior but against the identity.

In addition to Frommer’s travel guides and serious fiction, you’ve edited erotic travel collections, such as “Between the Palms.” A recent Page Six item in the New York Post highlighted that aspect of “Gay Travels in the Muslim World.” Do you think that’s the main interest in this book, that people expect it to be erotic or titillating?

The book is not a piece of erotica. The audience is gay men, but I actually really wanted a far broader audience than gay men, a mainstream audience. I dug through the rubble of the Twin Towers, and I’m a travel writer and photographer, and I have no skills other than to go to other places, to experience then write about them, photograph them and allow people who would never visit those places to understand them. So that’s the thing that I wanted people to get out of it. There are people in war zones, and we need a better understanding of those people.

Why do people still find the idea of the Middle East or Middle Eastern men so tantalizing, so romantic, after all that’s happened there?

I think that it’s both men and women. I think even the idea of a veiled woman is quite alluring. It really brings out the eyes and it makes sexuality more intense because it’s so hidden; it’s not in your face in the way that it is in the West. It’s the same idea that men in the Middle East are unattainable. For many men, the notion that there’s a danger in having sex there is somewhat alluring. Then there’s the whole historical aspect: The Middle East was at one time far more liberal on homosexuality than the West was. In the Victorian period, you had a huge amount of literature about this. I think that still holds a very strong appeal.

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Gay Travels in the Muslim World by Michael Luongo can purchased through our webstore! Portion of all proceeds are donated to Al-Fatiha Foundation.

UK LGBT Group Protests 2014 Commonwealth Games

Gays protest CW games

The UK-based gay rights group Outrage, and affiliated Nigerian groups, have spoken out against a bid by the Nigerian authorities to host the 2014 Commonwealth Games.

"It would not be right for the 2014 Commonwealth Games to be held in Nigeria, given the country's appalling human rights record, including its systematic persecution of lesbian and gay Nigerians," said Davis Mac-Iyalla, founder and leader of the gay Christian group, Changing Attitude Nigeria.

Continued...

Op/Ed: Australia Tribunal Needs Reviewing

August 2, 2007

TRIBUNAL NEEDS REVIEWING by Andrew M. Potts

Anyone who read Harley Dennett’s report on gay Muslim asylum-seekers last week (“Refugee tribunal: you’re not gay”, SSO 877) will be outraged at some of the shocking judgments being handed down by the Refugee Review Tribunal board. But the case of Mohamed Sarhan and his Australian partner is just the latest in a string of mystifying Tribunal decisions going back years.

Immigration officers and Tribunal members have time and again shown a frightening lack of understanding of the situation these men face and an appalling narrow-mindedness when it comes to the realities of global gay identities.

Continued...

Australian Refugee Tribunal Tells Gay Egyptian Man He's Not Gay

July 25, 2007

REFUGEE TRIBUNAL: YOU'RE NOT GAY
by Harley Dennett

The Refugee Review Tribunal believes Mike and Brad's second anniversary commitment ceremony is a fake.

Despite a High Court rebuke and assurances to the Senate, immigration authorities are still finding ways to ignore pleas for protection on the basis of anti-gay persecution.

Egyptian-born Mohamed (Mike) Sarhan is the latest in a string of cases where bigoted assumptions by the Refugee Review Tribunal (RRT) and the Immigration Department are putting gay people at risk of torture.

Sarhan and his Australian partner Brad Calderon celebrated their second anniversary last week with rings and a ceremony at Sydney Town Hall, but the RRT accused them of faking homosexuality.

“How on earth can you prove that you are gay or not? I told her everything during the interview but she threw it out,” Sarhan said.

Continued...

Daily Muslim Wisdom - Love Your Brother

"A true believer loves for his brother what he loves for himself."

-The Prophet Muhammad (SAW), as reported by Anas bin Malik.

Article: Quebec Gay Rights Group Gets UN Status; World Body Needs 'Diverse Voices' Canada Urges

By Steven Edwards

CanWest News Service

Saturday, July 21, 2007

UNITED NATIONS -- Canada came out swinging in favour of a Quebec gay-rights activist group yesterday, successfully lobbying for the United Nations to reverse a rejection of the group by a UN committee dominated by Muslim and developing countries.

Canada's Hugh Adsett said the UN should be where "diverse voices" can be heard, and "even if some governments don't agree with some [activists], they should not be excluded," note-takers reported.

The charge led to UN approval for the Coalition gaie et lesbienne du Quebec to receive "observer" status at the world body.

But Canada's siding with political activists who'd upset China over the international status of Taiwan -- which Beijing considers to be a Chinese province -- wasn't enough to prevent a one-year suspension of their group from the "observer" list.

After Adsett said Canada "deplored" the action against Liberal International, Cuba's Maria Del Carmen claimed China had acted out of a "spirit of flexibility, understanding and compromise."

The drama took place in Geneva at a meeting of the Economic and Social Council -- a central UN arm run by 54 member governments, including Canada's.

Among other business, the council was reviewing recommendations from its 19-member committee on non-governmental organizations about giving groups permission to campaign at ECOSOC meetings as "observers."

Committee members Egypt, Guinea, Pakistan, Qatar and Sudan led the successful blocking of the Quebec group's application in January despite its strong record in Canada as a bona-fide campaigner.

The vote reflected hostility towards the idea of homosexuality in many parts of the world -- in particular in Muslim countries, but also by the governments of some big powers such as China and Russia.

But the countries holding those views form a far smaller proportion of the ECOSOC membership, and the vote was 22 in the Quebec group's favour, 13 against, 13 abstentions and the rest absent. "We're surprised and happy," said Yvan Lapointe, CGLQ executive director, who said his group now planned to use the UN as a platform to spread homosexual rights to many of the same countries that voted against it.

© Times Colonist (Victoria) 2007

News: Gay NGOs Gain Status at United Nations

Gay NGOs Gain Status at U.N. with U.S. Vote

By: ANDY HUMM

08/02/2007

The United Nations Economic and Social Council has voted to give consultative status to two LGBT non-governmental organizations, the Coalition gaie et lesbienne du Quebec and the Swedish Federation for LGBT Rights, the International Lesbian and Gay Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) announced.

The Council includes 54 member states and the vote was 22-13-13 for the Quebec group and 22-12-12 for the Swedes with the United State voting in favor of both.

Russia voted no as did China and Muslim nations. Japan and South Africa voted yes as did Mexico.

Paula Ettelbrick of IGLHRC said the successful votes were due in large part to the backing that these groups received from their governments.

Daily Muslim Wisdom

Humankind, you have received manifest proof from your Lord. A radiant light to dispel your darkness was sent down to you. Those who believe in their Lord and hold fast to Him shall be admitted to His grace and bounty. He will guide them to Himself by the straight path.

-Qur'an, An-Nisa, Surah 4:175-176

From "The Bounty of Allah," translated by Aneela Khalid Arshed. Copyright 1999. All rights reserved. Used with permission of The Crossroad Publishing Company, New York.

Malaysia to Block Planned Gay Church

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August 13, 2007

Malaysia to block planned gay church

Kuala Lumpur - Muslim-majority Malaysia will block a plan by the country's first and only openly gay pastor to establish a church embracing homosexuals, bisexuals and transsexuals, a minister said on Monday.

Reverend Ouyang Wen Feng, an ethnic Chinese Malaysian ordained in the US, caused controversy after saying he wanted to set up the church by 2010.

The government would block the plan, Tourism Minister Adnan Tengku Mansor told AFP, adding the country had always sought to portray itself as a "family-oriented" holiday destination.

"We have no intention of being portrayed the same way like other cities such as Bangkok or those other cities in that league," Mansor said, apparently referring to the Thai capital's sex industry.

"We are here to be seen as a multicultural country with people who are good, excellent followers of their respective religions," Mansor added.

Homosexuality falls under a Malaysian law prohibiting sodomy, which is punishable by up to 20 years in prison and whipping.

Ouyang's plan to start the church had stirred anxiety, Reverend Wong Kin Kong, the secretary general of Malaysia's National Evangelical Christian Fellowship, said last week.

This was "because Christians do not want others to assume they condone such a thing," he said.

But Ouyang remained unfazed and urged a congregation of about 80 people - including his male partner - to "reclaim faith and celebrate our sexuality" in an underground mass on Sunday.

"For some of us, especially our gay brothers and sisters, we have experienced first hand that Christianity has been used to persecute minorities," Ouyang told the mass, according to press reports. - Sapa-AFP

Published on the Web by IOL on 2007-08-13 12:37:02

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© Independent Online 2005. All rights reserved. IOL publishes this article in good faith but is not liable for any loss or damage caused by reliance on the information it contains.

Letter to the Editor: Leave the Islam-bashing to the Expers

Letter to the New York Blade Editor and Publisher

August 8, 2007

Trenton Straube
Editor, New York Blade

Email: tstraube@hx.com

Gary V. Lacinski

Publisher, New York Blade
Email: glacinski@hx.com

Leave the Islam-bashing to the Experts

Dear Editor,

It is a shame that the New York Blade continues to publish the ranting of Michael Lucas, someone who clearly has so much internalized hatred, that his words lack any sense of wisdom or truth.

In his latest tirade against Islam titled "Burn the Koran? It's Gay Artwork," published as an "opinion" piece in the New York Blade on August 3, 2007 (http://www.nyblade.com/2007/8-3/viewpoint/opinion/koran.cfm), Lucas asserts that we should all celebrate Charles Merrill (a self-proclaimed "artist") for his latest publicity stunt.

After receiving little public outrage over "editing" the Holy Bible with a black marker and pair of scissors, Merrill turned his anti-religious fervor onto the Quran (note the correct spelling). According to media reports, Merrill burned a rare copy of the Quran in an "undisclosed location." According to Merrill (and I'm sure Lucas will agree), "the purpose of editing and burning Abrahamic Holy Books is to eliminate homophobic hate." He goes on to state that "both anicent books are terrorist manuals."

Hooray! Should we send roses and champagne to Mr. Merrill for his courageous act? Or should we send him a congratulatory letter for not being the latest victim of a fatwa from Iran or Saudi Arabia? Michael Lucas thinks so; in fact he goes a step further. Without overtly stating it, Lucas believes that all queer people living in Western societies should ban together and begin a pogrom of Muslims everywhere.

Unfortunately for Lucas, LGBT Americans are not as gullible as he might they are. Yes we'll buy your porn Mr. Lucas; in fact we'll even support the many philanthropic causes that your company supports. But we won't succumb to your vitriolic and ignorant proclamations. Because unlike you, most of us have a more enhanced understanding of Islam and the Muslim community – and here's the big shocker - many of us even have Muslim friends, neighbors, colleagues and partners. One might even venture to guess that one (or more) of the men featured in your porn videos is a follower of (what you call) the "Supreme Nincompoop" called Allah.

LGBT Americans also understand that berating Muslims and the religion of Islam does nothing to counter the agenda of Islamic radicals; in fact it further fuels the fires of hatred already being flamed by fanatics like Osama bin Laden and George W. Bush. By condemning a 1,400 year-old religion with more than 1.5 billion followers, Lucas only illustrates how ignorant he really is. As for the estimated 6 million Muslims in the United States (including 600,000 New Yorkers), is Lucas so delusional to think that we're ALL fag-hating queer-bashers?

Michael Lucas should really stick to what he knows best – producing and staring in gay male porn videos. Leave the Islam-bashing to the neo-conservative journalists who can at least back up their anti-Muslim rhetoric with some facts (as biased as they may be).

Hate crimes against Muslims in this country is at an all time high. It does no one any good to promote the obtuse views of a porn mogul like Michael Lucas.

I sincerely hope that the editors of the New York Blade will grasp the extent of damage they do (against Muslims – both straight and queer) every time they decide to publish "opinions" that are not only arrogant but extremely ignorant.

With sincere regards,

Faisal Alam

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Faisal Alam is a queer Muslim activist of Pakistani descent. As the founder and former director of Al-Fatiha, the only national LGBT Muslim organization. He can be reached through his blog Queer Muslim Revolution (http://queermuslimrevolution.blogspot.com) and by email at FaisalAlam@aol.com.
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News: 18 Nigerians Charged with Sodomy

August 10, 2007

From the Associated Press

18 Nigerians Charged With Sodomy


ABUJA, Nigeria -

Eighteen men face charges of sodomy in a Nigerian Islamic court after they were arrested while allegedly preparing to take part in a gay wedding, state media reported.

Gay sex is illegal across Nigeria, and defendants convicted under the Muslim code, called Shariah, may face death by stoning. However, no Shariah court-ordered execution has been carried out since the Islamic law was implemented in 12 northern Nigeria states seven years ago.

The 18 men were arrested on Aug. 5 in remote northern Bauchi state, where they were found with women's apparel as they prepared for a gay wedding, Nigeria's state news agency reported.

The men were charged Wednesday in a Bauchi Shariah court, where they pleaded innocent, the news agency reported late Thursday.

Nigeria's 140 million people are nearly evenly divided between Christians, who predominate in the south, and Muslims, who predominate in the north. Shariah was implemented in a dozen northern states after the return to civilian rule in 1999, following years of oppressive military regimes.

President Umaru Yar'Adua, a Muslim who succeeded a Christian leader when he took power May 29, was governor of one of those states, Katsina.

Yar'Adua has not spoken publicly about Shariah since becoming a presidential candidate last year. But he has said he is committed to continuing the rule of his predecessor, Olusegun Obasanjo.

Obasanjo believed that Shariah contravened Nigeria's secular constitution. He said he would never allow capital or other serious punishment allowed under Shariah to take place.

Nigeria is a deeply conservative country where homosexuality runs counter to many people's beliefs, both Muslim and Christian.

Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed