When the New York Times discovers gays from Muslim countries. Here you are treated to an article about Muslim gays in the US: "Even as they reveled in newfound freedom compared with the Muslim world, they remained closeted, worried about being ostracized at the mosque or at their local falafel stand. (I am sure that gay people in Mississippi or in Louisiana have no worries about "being ostracized" at the church or the burger stand. Because this is the US where there is no stigma whatsoever for being gay or lesbian.) “They’re afraid of the rest of the community here,” said Ayman, a stocky 31-year-old from Jordan, who won asylum in the United States last year on the basis of his sexuality. “It’s such a big wrong in the Koran that it is impossible to be accepted.” And then you hear from an expert on Islam--somebody that you and I have never heard of before--about how it is "such a big wrong in the Koran." "Most Koranic verses treating same-sex relations are ambiguous, said Omid Safi, an Islamic studies professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “They are talking about an ‘abomination,’” Professor Safi said, “but what an abomination is remains open to interpretation.”" Abomination? That expert clearly 1) does not know Arabic; 2) is confusing the Qur'an with the Old Testament where homosexuality is mentioned as an abomination punishable by death. There is no such word in the Qur'an about same-sex sex. There is a word fahishah which is quite different from abomination: it can sometimes, as Ibn Mandhur tells us, mean an undesirable situation when a woman leaves her house without her husband permission or it can mean a vice or adultery. (See vol. 11 of Lisan Al-`Arab, the Dar Sadir edition--the best one thus far). And then the New York Times correspondent, Neil Macfarquhar, (who once wrote me an angry email from Cairo because I dared criticize him--how dare an Arab criticize a New York Times correspondent?) says this: "As a rule, gay Muslim activists lacked the scholarly grounding needed to scrutinize time-honored teachings. But that is changing, activists say, partly because no rigid clerical hierarchy exists in the West to bar such research." What does that mean? Like if you studied the Qur'an on your own in the Middle East, somebody will come to your house to bar such research? The problem with the New York Times is that the foreign editors are even less informed, and always more fanatic Zionists, than the correspondents. And the well-informed (and bad tempered) Macfarquhar adds this: "Nonetheless, gaining acceptance remains such a hurdle that Muslims in the United States hesitate. Imam Daayiee Abdullah, 53, a black convert to Islam, was expelled from a Saudi-financed seminary in Virginia after the school found out he is gay. His effort to organize a gay masjid, or mosque, in Washington failed largely out of fear, he said." Wow. Such things happen only in Muslim countries but never in the free US. I mean, have you ever heard of a school in the great US expelling a teacher for being gay? NEVER. Also, gays and lesbians are allowed to form gay and lesbian groups in churches all around the US. In fact, Baptist and Mormon churches are known to host gay and lesbian groups throughout the free US. And notice that when you speak about Islam and the Middle East, you never need to present evidence: in such cases anecdotal evidence is all what is required (in fact, Brian Whitaker's book, Unspeakable Love is but an anthology of anecdotes, that is why it was quite surprising for this otherwise fine reporter (he wrote excellent critiques of MEMRI and of the silly Arab Human Development Report) to dare to criticize Joseph Massad's Desiring Arabs which at least is thorough, sophisticated, and NOT based on anecdotes): "Muslim clerics reject being gay as biologically coded and advise anyone with homosexual stirrings to avoid temptation. They see America as rife with it given practices like open gym showers." Who are those Muslim clerics, o New York Times correspondent? Tell me NOW. And then Macfarquhar says: "Renowned poets wrote odes glorifying handsome boys. Some were interpreted as metaphors about loving God, but some were paeans to gay sex." What? Metaphors to loving God? With references to penis and kissing and touching? Who are we talking about here? In fact, it is the reverse. Some Sufi poetry that is about God may have been poetry about same sex-sex, like some poems by Hallaj. And then you read this: "Ayman, the parade organizer, said his previous life in Jordan was marked by fear. Arrested at 17 after a sexual encounter in a public building." Yes, here in the free US there are no fears of such things, and recently when a Senator had an attempted encounter in a "public building", he was let go, and the nation did not even notice, and he did not have to resign his seat in the Senate. Such are the freedoms of the US. He then says that "he said the police wrote “manyak,” a homosexual slur." The word needs not be a slur, just like queer. It literally means somebody who receives sex, or who is penetrated. It is a slur if one is homophoebic, and as we know there is no such homophoebia in the US as Macfarquhar tells you and me. And then you have to add sensational rumors and hunches to grab the attention and sympathy of the White Man and of Human Rights Watch which has a special budget to write patronizing reports about upper class men who are persecuted by the police: "He is convinced that a 22-year-old gay friend who died after a fall from an apartment building was the victim of an “honor” killing meant to clean the family’s reputation." He is convinced, why? And since when "honor" killing--which is Mediterranean (read the book Republic of Cousins) apply to such cases? And then more nuggests: "A 26-year-old from Saudi Arabia who took the first name Liam after rejecting his faith said that as a teenager he fought his homosexuality by becoming a religious zealot. He eventually accepted his sexuality while at college in Colorado, but moved to the Bay Area because gay life in the kingdom was too depressing." Yes, here, we don't have gay religious zealots who rail against homosexuality. Also, we understand that he moved away from the Kingdom because he found gay life there "too depressing" but why did our friend here leave COLORADO???? And I have one last question: why did the college student from Colorado move to the Bay Area and not to Louisiana? After all this is the US where there is freedom for gays and lesbians in all 50 states according to the well-informed New York Times correspondent?