Reply #33: I've lived [View All]

[CJCRANE]

in a muslim country and from what I can gather there used to be generally an attitude of turning a blind eye towards homosexuality in many arab countries (in fact there is one arab country where it is well-known that the leader is gay, but of course not spoken about in polite society).

However, there has been a massive rise in islamic fundamentalism in the last few years so attitudes are becoming very intolerant. For instance gay marriage was officially banned in 2004 in the muslim country I lived in (i.e it was happening previous to that), but this was only after it had become a big issue in American politics (Americans sometimes forget that the whole world watches CNN and follows the same hot-button issues).

NB: also note that in arab culture there are different names for the "active" and "passive" partner in gay sex and the "passive" partner is looked down upon more for some reason.

on edit: there was also a prejudice amongst some that homosexuality was quite prevalent amongst arabs but not amongst africans.