Mideast Piece

The other day I was hanging out at the beach and watching hot guys do their thing. Some were sunbathing; others playing volleyball. There were lots of folks out windsurfing too. This reminded me of Gal Fridman, Israel’s only gold medal winner. Gal (His name means “wave” in Hebrew, btw.), won a gold metal at the Athens 2004 Summer Olympics for windsurfing. I think he’s hot stuff!

In a sad post-script to my “Don’t Look” entry two days ago, I just learned that the ultra-popular Facebook site has caved in from the pressure of some Arab governments and banned a growing “GLBT Arab” group on the site. According to a Facebook administrator, “we received an official complaint from the Saudi government, the Egyptian government and other Arab governments that do not want to be mentioned”—and those countries threatened to block Facebook entirely if their demands weren’t met.

At the end of the day, capitalism trumped freedom of speech, as well as the right of GLBT individuals of all nationalities to build community - even in cyberspace.

Has Israel been blamed yet?

CNN reports that police have arrested a wife and her husband, who was born a woman and underwent sex reassignment surgery 16 years ago, and accused them of lying about the husband’s gender to a court in eastern Pakistan.

According to the report:

The case pits the bride’s father, who wants to annul his daughter’s wedding on the grounds that it is against Islam for two women to marry, against the couple, who said they married to protect the bride from being sold into marriage to pay off her uncle’s gambling debts.

The husband, Shumail Raj, 31, first brought the case to court, appealing for protection from harassment by their relatives. But earlier this month the Lahore High Court ordered the arrest of Raj and his wife, Shahzina Tariq, 26, for lying to the court.

Raj told the court he is male, but a court-appointed panel ruled that Raj is a woman, whose breasts and uterus were removed in sex-change surgery.

This report is in contrast to what Pakistan’s Prime Minister, Shaukat Aziz, had to say recently at the World Economic Forum on the Middle East 2007. There Aziz said, “Very often we have seen the high costs of exclusion.” Of course he was talking about something else but I really don’t care. At the forum Pakistan was promoted as a progressive place to do business - apparently part of that business involves selling women to pay off debts.

As part of Tori Amos’ world tour to promote her new album “American Doll Posse”, the piano playing diva will preform in Turkey and Israel. In Israel she will perform at the Ra’anana Amphitheater July 21.

Check out other tour dates and venues at Tori’s website. The clip below is not for young ears…and maybe not your workplace.

A new study find that at least 25 countries block Internet sites from their citizens. Among these countries are most of the large Arab nations and Iran. Beyond pornography and gambling, countries routinely block sites related to human rights abuses, keeping citizens in the dark about atrocities carried out by the government.

The OpenNet Initiative, a collaboration between researchers at Cambridge, the University of Oxford, Harvard University and the University of Toronto, has previously published reports detailing censorship in specific countries. The latest study was its attempt to compare filtering worldwide.

The Internet is indeed a powerful weapon in protecting human rights and expanding freedom; however, even among millions of people able to log on, totalitarian governments continue to keep citizens in the dark.

Beirut, Lebanon - once dubbed the Paris of the Middle East - is currently home to a groundbreaking exhibition called “Erotika” depicting female sexuality.

Vivid colors are used to show images of fetishism, homosexuality and even masturbation in a show artists hope will help break taboos in the region (samples below). “We do not want to shock people,” said co-creator Nayla Karam. “We allow our inspiration to guide us. One of our greatest pleasures is to see the different reactions of people, depending on their own fantasies.”

Click here to learn more.

Meet Etgar Boner. Ok, his last name is boner. And his first name means “challenge” in Hebrew. And he sports varying hairstyles. Nice.

Yesterday was the four-year anniversary of more than one-thousand same-sex couples obtaining marriage licenses in Massachusetts on the first day that licenses were available to gay and lesbian couples. Marcia Hams and Susan Shepard (pictured here) were for first same-sex couple in Massachusetts to receive a marriage license.

Unfortunately, the right for gays to marry in Massachusetts is still in jeopardy, with legislative battles taking place a I write this.

How many years will pass before all individuals will be free to love and marry the partner of their choice?

A study prepared for the Canadian government and allegedly buried for several years claims that children with same-sex parents do as well - if not better - than their counterparts raised by opposite-sex couples.

“A few studies suggest that children with two lesbian mothers may have marginally better social competence than children in ‘traditional nuclear’ families, even fewer studies show the opposite, and most studies fail to find any differences,” the study says.

Slowly, but slowly, the world will learn to accept GLBT individuals as valid human beings, capable of raising children and contributing to society (says me).