Prisoners of Sex - New York Times
it's a long magazine article but it's a rather good one, outlining what it's like to be gay in egypt. (and michel foucault makes a brief appearance!)
and what it's like is bad: entrapment, torture, beatings, jail, public humiliation, death.
several things ocurred to me as i was reading it:
how is our treatment of homosexuality in this country different?
what common threads are there between our Family Values activism against gay marriage, gay adoption, domestic partnership (which also benefits straight people), gay participation in military life, civic life and egypt's anti-gay activities?
is thinking about gay rights a 'luxury' of western civilization?
does reading about how bad it is 'over there' make us feel better about how 'good' it is over here?
and what about the women?
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4 comments:
As usual, we have more in common with the "Islamo-fascists" than we'd care to admit.
it'll be a few days before i get a chance to read this, but i'm curious!
i thought it was really interesting because it prompted me to think about the extent to which we want our religious feelings to push into the private sphere.
though certain sectors of the evangelical movement advocate for a blurrier line between public/private than i would like, i wonder if they have thought carefully what it would look like, in our society, to enforce their world view.
i dare say, they haven't. not if it looks like this.
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