There's a war brewing in the Middle East - and we're not talking about Iraq.

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We had no idea activism could be so glamorous!

Rather than endorsing Argentina's lackluster civil union laws, activist duo Cesar Cigliutti and Marcelo Suntheim hopped a plane to gay marrying Spain.

"We came to Spain because there is a marriage law here that allows the union of homosexuals and in Argentina there isn't," Cigliutti, president of the Argentine Homosexual Community, told The Associated Press from Madrid.

The newlyweds celebrated with friends Monday before a honeymoon in Egypt.

Okay, so from a really gay friendly to one that's not so keen on the queens… Doesn't that sort of defeat the purpose?

Egyptian director Khaled Youssef's new flick caused quite a stir. Right wing religionists are protesting Hina Maysara for its lesbianic content:

Religious scholars in Egypt are outraged by a lesbian scene in a new movie, telling audiences to stay away from the sinful flick and calling for the director and actresses to be prosecuted.

Preacher and Islamic Studies professor at Cairo University, Dr. Abdel-Sabour Shahin accused the new movie, Hina Maysara (Until Further Notice), of spreading homosexuality and promoting debauchery.

He called on authorities to prosecute the director of the movie and the two actresses, Ghada Abdel-Razeq and Sumaya Al-Khashab, who enacted the lesbian encounter on the big screen.

Shahin claimed the movie is part of "a Zionist and American conspiracy" which uses this sort of movie to destroy the moral fabric of society.

Hina Maysara's hardly the first Egyptian movie to portray same-sex love. Emaret Yacoubian depicted a gay romance.

Youssef seems undeterred by the protest, but urges his enemies to see the movie before passing judgment. It may be too late for that…

There's another, far less liberatory "exodus" out of Egypt. An enterprising "good" doctor decided to import some good old fashioned anti-gay reparative therapy:

An Egyptian doctor is facing strong criticism from liberals and conservatives alike for opening a clinic to treat homosexuals, with some charging the clinic has become a meeting place for gays, and others accusing the doctor himself of being gay.

Dr. Awsam Wasfi, 42, offers a "treatment program" for gays that focuses on boosting their self-esteem and enhancing their communication skills, as well as encouraging them to play sports and work on their religious beliefs.

Sports and religion: two things no queer knows about…

The doctor defended his irresponsible practice, saying, "Lots of them want to be treated… When society rejects them, they feel desperate and lose hope in changing their situation." Well, perhaps Egyptian society needs therapy, not the gays. That, of course, would be too much work.

Governor Bill Richardson knows he made a bad move at last night's "gay debates," when he intimated that being gay is, in fact, a choice: a tired argument conservatives use against gay rights. If gays "choose" their "lifestyle," then they don't deserve "special" rights. Not the implication you want to make at a forum on gay rights.

Within minutes, the presidential hopeful had his team release a statement clarifying his position.

What a perfect conversation starter for Richardson and our editor, who met up with Richardson this morning. Get the goods on Richardson's poor choice of words, what to do about anti-gay Saudis and who's going to hell, after the jump…

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• M.I.A. and New Now Next's John Polly gab on the gays, being famous and her new track, "Boyz".

• If NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg isn't running for president, what's with Mike2008.com?

• How did former Men's Fitness editor Neal Boulton boot Genre's Chris Ciompi? He called David Unger and asked for the job.

• To-do on August 4th: stop homophobia in Poland.

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• We saw a line of people waiting for the iPhone. They were all playing with their soon-to-be old phones. We think they're insane, as is the rest of the country.

• Talk about a tabloid wet dream: Francesca Hilton, daugher of Zsa Zsa Gabor and Paris Hilton's late grandfather, Conrad, called Zsa Zsa's current (ninth) husband, Prince Frederic von Anhalt, a faggot. von Anhalt's claim to fame, besides being married to Gabor, would be his claim that he fathered Anna Nicole Smith's baby. The icing - it went down outside a court house. And TMZ got it on video. Tune in for a special peek into Paris' future. (Cue splooge.)

• Mitt Romney's a cat person:

Romney placed his family dog, an Irish setter named Seamus, into a kennel leashed to the top of his station wagon for a 12-hour family trip from Boston to Ontario in 1983. Despite being shielded by a wind screen the former Massachusetts governor erected, Seamus expressed his discomfort with a diarrhea attack.

Romney claims the dog loved riding on the roof in a swirl of liquified shit: "He scrambled up there every time we went on trips." Scrambled? More like slid.

• London Pride ain't afraid of no car bombs. The parade marches on tomorrow. With a mock Eurovision to protest anti-gay nations.

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In sort-of-related, a gay man by the name of Mohamed Essam Ghoneim el-Attar has been under lock and key over in Egypt. The government insists el-Attar admitted to spying for an Israeli Mossad-backed espionage group in both Canada and Turkey. Israel, of course, denies the charges.

Fearing his faggot life in Egypt, el-Attar fled to Canada back in 2002, where he took a job as a bank teller. On the 1st of this year, el-Attar flew back to Cairo, where police arrested him and threw him in detention. His family insists he's not a spy and has been calling on the Canadian government to help rescue him. The government, however, has not acknowledge el-Attar's citizenship and therefore hasn't made a pledge to negotiate for his safe return. Globe and Mail elaborates:

While in custody, prosecutors say, [el-Attar] admitted that he worked for Israel, at the behest of a Mossad-backed espionage network operating in both Canada and Turkey.
…
Egypt has alleged that he has revealed the identities of Mossad handlers living in Turkey and Canada, and is urging that they be arrested and sent to Egypt for trial.

Canada, which has no extradition treaty with Egypt, has not said whether it would oblige the request. In the past, human-rights concerns have scuttled attempts to deport fugitive Egyptians from Canada.

Though it's unclear whether Canada will step in on el-Attar's behalf, officials do concede that he faces the risk of persecution in Egypt. As if that weren't obvious enough.

• Egypt has an astonishingly low HIV infection rate, but not because everyone is using condoms. Gays are afraid to get tested because their hospital records might be used against them in police raids, so the freely available tests are underutilized. [Pink News]

• Black voters are repeatedly duped by the Republican party's homophobic tactics, according to a new study. [365 Gay]

• You can now officially find gay sex inside of Walmart. The Brokeback Mountain DVD will be sold as planned despite protests from Christian groups. [LA Times]

• The community of family-friendly Crystal Lake, IL will allow the Gay Games to send its perverted, homosexual rowers to compete on their beloved body of water. [ABC7]

• Syphilis is on the rise in Chicago. Shall we issue an orange alert or can citizens smarten up and start playing safe? [The Advocate]

The New York Times reported the other day on the Egyptian tomb of Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep, two men who shared a tomb, something extremely rare.

"And it was most unusual for a couple of the same sex to be depicted locked in an embrace. In other scenes, they are also shown holding hands and nose-kissing, the favored form of kissing in ancient Egypt. What were scholars to make of their intimate relationship?"

There are three explanations. According to theorists they were either twins, conjoined twins, or gay lovers. Um we’ll choose number three thank you very much. For obvious reasons.

We’re all for breaking down stereotypes, but sometimes they exist for a reason. Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep were manicurists. Yes, manicurists. And we all know what that means, honey.

A Mystery, Locked in Timeless Embrace [NY Times]