By Micah Halpern
I've Been Thinking:This week two Lebanese men were arrested for "unnatural sexual intercourse." That's a cliche and it means gay.
It is against the law to be gay in Lebanon and having gay relations is punishable by a year in prison.
Lebanon is the most liberal of all Arab and Muslim countries, in other countries the punishment would have been death.
And only recently, once again in Lebanon, police raided a movie and their arrest netted thirty-five men. All underwent anal inspections by doctors and three were charged with being homosexuals.
The Lebanese doctors union called on the physicians conducting the exams to cease and desist. If not, they said, the union would engage in a serious professional standards hearing and discipline them for violating the code of medicine.
This is all taking place in the most open and liberal of Arab regimes. Most human rights organizations have been silent on the issue although Human Rights Watch has supported the doctors union in Lebanon. There has been no international call to stop this abuse.
Where is the outrage?
The situation almost sounds medieval.
Human rights and civil rights should be independent of religious points of view. One has the right to reject homosexuality but that same person should - actually must - defend homosexuals who are harassed, threatened and persecuted by individual thugs of by thugocratic societies.
Micah@MicahHalpern.com
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