Mideast Piece

Gotta love Israeli music!

“I do not want a crown, I do not want a throne. I only want to rub my forehead in the dust and dance with abandon over the earth. If the Sultan would show me favour, then I might be allowed to dance even upon the winds… Because those who denounce me are not real men in the spiritual sense, they cannot accept love with all its consequences in their hearts. Oh my love, there a thousand snares in every form; oh my love, one who is not a real man can never experience true love!”

-Sufi mystic Akhi Jamshed Rajgiri defending himself before the Sultan of Juanpur

The Economist reported this week that it is becoming more difficult for gay Palestinians to find refuge in Israel and abroad. According to the report, because Israel is filling in the remaining open spaces in its security barrier/fence/wall it recently took a Palestinian drag performer seven hours to complete what should normally be a one hour journey from Ramallah to Tel Aviv.

The article relates that

One time, high heels and a wig saved Imad from prison. The 22-year-old from the West Bank capital, Ramallah, had been caught in Jerusalem without a permit. On the way to the jail, the police asked him and his friend why they had sneaked into town. As his friend shrivelled up with shame, Imad (not his real name) proudly told them he had come to perform at the Shushan, Jerusalem’s only gay bar. He opened his bag and flourished his outfit with a bristle of sequins. The police, realising that they had caught a couple of drag queens instead of a couple of terrorists, let them go with a warning never to return. “And two days later,” recounts Imad with a gleam in his eye, “I was back, even in the same café where they arrested me.”

Thanks to Simon in Bahrain for the tip!

FRIDAY, JUNE 8 FROM 12:00. (The march is usually around 1ish. But come and hang out until time to walk!) Meet at Gan HaIr and march down Arlozorov Street to a party at Gordon Beach.

See you there!

According to Ynet News, police have given the Jerusalem Open House (the local LGBTQ community center) approval to hold this year’s pride parade!

The article continues:

The Jerusalem Open House received a letter from Israeli police Thursday, giving the community center preliminary permission to hold the annual gay pride parade in Jerusalem, this June.

The parade’s organizers submitted their request for the permits needed to hold the parade last March, but the controversial parade was fiercely apposed by the city’s Orthodox residents.

“Let there be no doubt – the police department is fully obligated by High Court ruling 7348/06″, said Jerusalem District Police Commander, Major-General Ilan Franco in the letter sent to the Open House.

The High Court ruling specified the district police must provide the permits and security necessary for the gay pride parade.

June 8 is Pride in Tel Aviv - and I’ll post the date soon for Pride in Jerusalem! All of you guys who are apathetic about pride in your community - get out and march this year or turn up to support marchers! There are MANY places around the globe where people don’t have the luxury of sitting at home while other people protect their human and civil rights.

BTW, there are some really nasty “talk backs” at the bottom of the article. It might be cool if you could put a word of support there too.

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.

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?

The other day I was complaining to a friend about my measurements. I don’t even know what mine are exactly but I am not happy about them. See, I have been searching craigslist M4M listings doing “research” for Mideast Piece. These guys all list their stats - height, weight, - and other, um, measurements. Anyway, I guess I was having a low self esteem day and was feeling down about my body. I am what you’d call a twink. I’ve got a “swimmers body” - but at 5′6″ (on a good day) combined with my boy-ish looks betray my very, very late twenties chronological age. It’s a good thing, I think.

I was sharing this with a friend of mine that I think is just HOT. In a super kind and gentle voice he said, “It’s not that your body is so small, it’s just that your head is so big.” He might not have said “so big” but rather “big” - but either way I felt like some kind of Cirque de Soleil freak puppet. I’ve searched the internet for head shrinking devices with no success at all. Damn, internets. So the only alternative is to make the other parts of my body bigger. Believe me, some parts need no enhancement however. I am sure that I’ll give this up in a few days because I have the discipline of a mutt puppy (although I don’t diddle on the floor anymore unless it’s that kind of party).

Speaking of big heads, Mideast Piece was recently featured in Haaretz. Haaretz is the New York Times of Israel. It doesn’t have the biggest readership, but it’s the most respected newspaper in Israel. You can read the article here. The print article had a super cute picture of me and my big head. I should have made them put my phone number in the paper too. Alas. I went to a party last night at the home of a correspondent for the BBC. Three people in this high brow crowd independently said that they saw my picture in the paper. I felt like a star and I even have the big head to prove it!