Homophobia stymies HIV fight in Islamic countries

Via New Scientist, by Andy Coghlan.

Stigma and homophobia against gay men is hampering efforts to manage a growing epidemic of HIV in Islamic countries, warn epidemiologists this week.

"The stigma is a barrier to HIV prevention services," says Laith Abu-Raddad of the Weill Cornell Medical College-Qatar in Doha. He heads up a team that is assembling, for the first time, data from the Islamic world on the growing prevalence of HIV in practising gay men.

They report that the arrival of HIV in the gay community has been relatively recent compared with other regions of the world, but warn that it is on the rise. In Pakistan, for example, the prevalence of HIV in transgender male sex workers rose from 0.8 per cent in 2005 to 6.4 per cent just three years later.

Historically, HIV epidemics have often begun in minority, high-risk groups such as men who have sex with men or intravenous drug users, then spread to the general population. A problem in much of the Islamic world is that men having sex with men is illegal. That, coupled with homophobia, hampers efforts to contain the virus by making gay men too scared to seek treatment, a pattern that has been seen in eastern European countries, India and sub-Saharan Africa.

Read the rest here.

[If an item is not written by an IRMA member, it should not be construed that IRMA has taken a position on the article's content, whether in support or in opposition.]

Islam, homophobia and the contested Muslim cultural center

via LGBT Asylum News, by Edna Nelson

"As you know, the Muslim faith doesn’t look kindly upon homosexuality, which is why I’m building this bar. It is an effort to break down barriers and reduce deadly homophobia in the Islamic world. In fact, [their] accusations of Islamophobia are meant to hide [their] cowardice concerning gay rights. Think about it – I’m putting gay rights front and center, before an ideology that condemns homosexuality. No one on the left has the balls to do that…Why would you side with those who would kill you – instead of a guy who just wants to open a gay bar?” -Greg Gutefield of Fox News

A Fox News reporter's announcement of his plans for a gay bar next door to the proposed Islamic cultural center is spurring discussion of Islam and the LGBT community as well as debate over who's taking whose side. The author of this piece examines the complexities of the Islam-LGBT relationship, and the challenges of both homophobia and Islamophobia.

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Hostility, not homosexuality, flies in the face of true Koranic teachings

via Fridae, by Bramantyo Prijosusilo

The recent cancellation of a planned Asian-wide conference of gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people in Surabaya reveals how far our society is from respecting human rights — and how close it is to slipping into religious fascism, writes Bramantyo Prijosusilo.

The police, who had earlier issued a permit — which is not really required by law — chose to bow down to Islamo-fascist groups such as the notorious thugs known as the Islam Defenders Front (FPI), who stormed hotels where they thought delegates of the conference were staying on Friday and demanded that all non-heterosexuals leave Surabaya. Reading journalists’ reports on the commotion and comments on news Web sites and on Facebook walls, it is obvious that any sexual orientation other than hetero is widely believed to be an illness that is contagious and immoral. Homophobia is alive and well in Indonesia.

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'Islam Needs a Sexual Revolution'

Interview via SPIEGEL ONLINE International

In the run-up to the Frankfurt Book Fair, German-Turkish writer Seyran Ates discusses her new book, which describes the necessity of a sexual revolution in the Islamic world, the recent integration debate in Germany and the arrogance of German women's rights activists.

Excerpts:

"Part of the process is that sexuality has to be recognized as something that every individual determines for himself or herself. Institutions like moral and religious police must be abolished," she says.

"They didn't sit down and say: Dear daughter, you are a girl, and that's why you can't have a boyfriend, because we don't want you to sleep with a man before marriage. Or: Dear daughter, you have a hymen, and we have to make sure that that hymen remains intact until your wedding. The entire system is designed so that everyone is given unspoken instructions on what to do -- or rather, what not to do."

Read the entire interview.

Sex Activist Wedad Lootah Challenges Taboos in Dubai

“Many men who had anal sex with men before marriage want the same thing with their wives, because they don’t know anything else,” Ms. Lootah said. “This is one reason we need sex education in our schools.

Challenging Sex Taboos, With Help From the Koran

via the New York Times, by Robert F. Worth

WEDAD LOOTAH does not look like a sexual activist. A Muslim and a native Emirati, she wears a full-length black niqab — with only her brown eyes showing through narrow slits — and sprinkles her conversation with quotes from the Koran.

Yet she is also the author of what for the Middle East is an amazingly frank new book of erotic advice in which she celebrates the female orgasm, confronts taboo topics like homosexuality and urges Arabs to transcend the backward traditions that limit their sexual happiness.

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New study claims 16% of Iranian men have had gay relationships

via pinknews.co.uk

A sociologist at an Iranian university has presented a new study that shows high levels of homosexual experiences among the country's population.

Iran has strict laws against sex outside marriage and other sexual acts such as masturbation. Adultery and same-sex acts are punishable by death.

Startling new research from sociologist Parvaneh Abdul Maleki found that 24% of Iranian women and 16% of Iranian men have had at least one homosexual experience.

73% of men and 26% of women surveyed said they had masturbated.

Ms Maleki presented her findings at the Third Conference on Well-being in the Family and the story has been reported in the Iranian press, albeit as a report on sexual deviance in need of treatment.

The report also revealed that more than 75% of those who grew up in a conservative religious environment have watched pornography, 86% have had a heterosexual relationship outside of marriage and just over 4% have had gay or lesbian relationships.

Since Iran's Islamic revolution in 1979, human rights groups claim that between 3,000 and 4,000 people have been executed under Sharia law for the crime of homosexuality.

In September the President of Iran admitted in an interview that there may be "a few" gay people in his country, but attacked homosexuality as destructive to society.

In an interview with US current affairs TV programme Democracy Now, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also rejected criticism of the execution of children in Iran.

During a visit to the US in 2007 he said in reply to a question posed about homosexuality during his speech at New York's Columbia University:

"In Iran we don't have homosexuals like in your country… In Iran we do not have this phenomenon, I don't know who has told you that we have it."

In his TV interview in September he condemned American acceptance of gay people.

"It should be of no pride to American society to say they defend something like this," President Ahmadinejad said.

"Just because some people want to get votes, they are willing to overlook every morality."