Does anybody know:
Why Hamas has arrested Jamal al Dura only days after the hotly contested video of the alleged death of his son Mohammed was aired in a Paris courtroom? It became publicly clear that the film was a piece of staged “fauxtography” and that little Mohammed did not die on camera. Who might not want al Dura to talk to journalists or judges? Actually, I am surprised that there really is a Jamal Al Dura…
Why do westerners believe that homosexuals in Arab and Muslim culture are, by definition, the standard-bearers for art and other progressive values? Yasir Arafat allegedly died of AIDS and was long known to be a homosexual. Did Arafat represent a model of liberatory values? Sheikh bin Mahfouz (who has sued at least 38 western authors and news publications and obtained letters of apology from all but Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld who has counter-sued him in New York state) is also allegedly homosexual. Does that mean that he, too, represents ethical or progressive values? Of course, most Arab and Muslim homosexuals are also married and have wives and children.
Homosexuals in ancient Greece and Rome owned slaves and despised women. Some were brilliant philosophers. Many participated in a cult of man-boy love. The same contemporary western homosexuals who failed to condemn or abstain from the “bathhouse culture” which killed so many men in the West in the 1980s are now failing to distinguish between western idealizations of homosexuality as a symbol for both oppression and liberation and the nature of homosexuality among Arabs and Muslims.
Back on the Western ranch: Neither J. Edgar Hoover, who was a cross-dressing homosexual nor Roy Cohn, who was also a homosexual, could be viewed as symbols of aesthetic or political liberation either.
I am just raising some questions on a slow Sunday afternoon.
Women, Jews, African-Americans, gays, and countless other groups have been subjected to discrimination. It does not follow that they like each other or support each other. Nevertheless, liberty is contagious. When one group achieves equal rights, that sets the stage for other groups to do the same.
I subscribe to CHINA DAILY and read it daily. I have been amazed and delighted that the taboo against homosexuality is ending. This encouraged me to send a letter to the editor citing a poem written 800 years ago by the Tang Dynasty poet Bai Juyi (also spelled Po chu-yi) telling of a bird that spoke eloquently and was therefore put into a cage, which is what always happens to eloquent speakers. CHINA DAILY printed the letter.
Daniel Pipes points out that the logically inconsistent Muslim world often believes the man who penetrates another man is not really engaging in homosexual behavior. Only the passive one is really gay. Yasir Arafat, at the very most, gave occasional lip service to Islamic doctrine. His fondness for violence may have been a way to overcompensate for his gay lifestyle. We should not forget that Mohammed Atta, one the 9/11 terrorists, was also rumored to be homosexual.