Saturday, June 7, 2008

The Only Middle Eastern Gay Pride Parade


Yesterday was the 10th Gay Pride parade, in Israel, to promote the rights of gays and lesbians. That's one thing for which Israel is actually more progressive than its neighbours. When will a Gay Pride event be organized in Palestine, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon or Egypt ?


Most governments in the region are very repressive (remember the Queen boat in Cairo). I suspect many Middle Eastern people even refuse to accept the existence of same-sex love.

Remember the hilarious statement of Mahmood Ahmadinejad stating that "there are no gays in Iran". From what I saw, Jordan and Lebanon are a bit more tolerant than Egypt. In Tel Aviv's Gay parade, the feminist group called "Black Laundry" also protest each year to promote Palestinian rights, a common sight in all progressive, left-wing demonstrations.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

All these issues are indeed important because they immediately impact our societies , to tell the truth i was shocked while reading this post..a bit surprised
and i think that only by shifting the perspective we end up with a totally new concept :)

interesting post.. keep it up