April 30, 2009
From streets to clubs, sexual attitudes shift in Lebanon
From the Arab world’s first gay rights demonstration to wild parties to a new graphic magazine, sexual attitudes are changing in Beirut. For a country once known more for wars, car bombs and political assasinations, Lebanon is assuming a new identity.
Worldfocus special correspondent Kristen Gillespie reports on sexual attitudes in Beirut. Read her blog from in the field: Beirut’s underground gay community congregates discreetly.
9 comments
Being homosexual IS NOT A CHOICE, the only choice is to live it or hide, to express it or deny it.
As long as we respect each others sexuality, we are not against love and life rules that God has created for us. Open your minds have never been violent against Heterosexual ones, but the opposite unfortunately still vails.
Good for Lebanon! Finally a movement for equality and against homophobia in an arab country!
Perhaps…
Deeply felt [outer and inner] Rains will provide some Answers to some of our most anguished Questions if we pray for more interesting clouds [veils of God] to rise above us and from within us: to make our inner Landscapes more vibrantly scenic…to clarify for us the sublimest part of that Truth we most need to know at any given moment but which often hides beyond our immediate sphere of awareness especially if we are attempting to look beyond the dome of our more immediate understanding…beyond that vault which [when we look up] has always contained the canvas upon which the Original Beauties of the azure skies above us have been painted and animated into our streaming imaginations.
Look up, then! with the eyes of a Filippo Brunelleschi.
Partake of the peace despite the lightning bolts felt when contemplating the divine sparks of his Duomo.
Truly! clouds [such as we know them] can send forth lightning bolts temporarily frightening the equilibrium of the lands with thunder.
Read to understand…as you will.
Rains are what they are…
and even provide topics
by their fallings into floodings of veiled geometrical philosophies in all their apparently chaotic rushings throughout the channels of our thoughtful lands…yet? without the implied and apparent colorful imageries involved in the complexities of all the meanings [individual and collective] construed behind any word and thought, spoken, written and done…we would never have been able to know more fully concerning the ramifications of all the involved emotional factors which would yet have still not so hindered the development of the lightning intellect that the Everlasting Spirit [ever involved in the activation of that intellect] could have been annulled from creating the animations of infinitely better mind-streams of frescoes of renewing circumstances and relationships by way of the spiritual aspect of our lives…like old paintings spanning entire walls and entire lengths of ancient catholic chapels where the physical Art itself may fade [unless preserved] but the Imagery and Meaning of Symbol and Substance [in the Mind of the First Artist of the Original Conception] never pass away…so long as the mind housed in the body of earth has thought well and thoroughly and is thinking clearly still and is animated toward a far higher purpose than anything produced by this Earth in its daily disintegrations which yet allow the awareness of a streaming conciousness to be preserved despite ceaseless centuries of Change.
I think it is a personal choice. Those who want to practice homosexuality should be given the personal freedoms to do so. After all, it takes two – if you don’t want it, someone else might. So why infringe on someone else’s personal freedoms. Or why let ancient books “the quran or the bible” dictate how you should live today?” We should all learn to live, love and appreciate each other, despite of our differences.
I am a muslim. I have many good Christian friends, and I suspect most Christians in Lebanon feel homosexuality is a GRAVE sin. Christians are generally more liberal than Muslims. Far fewer Muslims would accept homosexuality. This difference is very interesting. After all, BOTH THE BIBLE AND QURAN CLEARLY FORBID HOMOSEXUALITY AND SHOW WHAT GOD DID TO THE PEOPLE OF “Loot” (“Lot”). But generally speaking, secularization has defeated nearly the entire Christian world. Perhaps for most Christians, they accept this. However, non-Muslims should understand that vast majority of Muslims do not want to live in a completely secular world. And I think this difference is one aspect of why, at times, there is dissonance between the Muslims and the West. Yes, we want to benefit from the technology and other great advances emanating from the West, but can we please say “no thanks” to homosexuality and hedonism?
Stan, you’re officially an idiot. Ahmadinejad is Iranian president, he claims that IRAN does not have any gay people. Iran is in the Middle East, but is not even an Arabic country.
and I thought there were no gays in the Arab/Muslim World or at least the ‘great’ leader of Iran said so … so maybe we shouldn’t believe him when he says all he’s after is ‘nuclear power NOT nuclear weapons’.
and I thought there were no gays in the Arab/Muslim World or at least the ‘great’ leader of Iran said so … so maybe we shouldn’t believe him when he says all he’s after is ‘nuclear power NOT nuclear weapons’.
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05/25/2009 :: 11:26:31 PM
Thanh Says:
This is a great news for Lebano. Lebanese people should be thankful to those who dare to stand out and do such things. I agree with Ronald that being sexual is not a choice, if we were born that way,so live for it, enjoy every single moment of life :)