Angel, a 19-year-old gay man living in Tel Aviv, was kidnapped by his family three times before authorities managed to indict his abductors. Displeased with Angel’s chosen profession — drag queen at a nightclub — his family began threatening him after seeing photos of him in drag on the Internet. There was the one time in May, where he was handcuffed and beaten, but didn’t make a big deal about it since there was a family wedding coming up. At which he was assaulted a second time, running into the woods and requiring the police to drop in. And then the August 23 assault, where his family members arrived at his apartment, pepper sprayed him, shoved him into a car, blindfolded him, tied him up, and threatened to knife him if he put up a fight; they eventually chained him in a locked room. Eight members of his family have been brought up on kidnapping and assault charges.
thick as skieves
19-Year-Old Tel Aviv Drag Queen Kidnapped, Beaten, Tormented … By His Own Family
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uu
Wow, a whole family of psychos. Religious? … Why do I even ask?
CHIP1218
Just to point out some facts not mentioned in Queerty’s blurb. Angel is an Arab who came to Tel Aviv to live in a more tolerant environment. Don’t know if he’s Muslim or Christian. Just stating the facts.
chicagotist
He’s most likely from a Muslim family, since the population of the city of Tamra, where he’s from is 96% Muslim. But if Angel is his real given name, he is more likely to be Christian…
Kris
and I thought my family was bad. Good Grief!! Disown him or whatever, but don’t kidnap, beat, and torture the man. He is your family member since birth.
Bareback Hussein Osama
That is why I favor Palestinians over Jews! Islam is the Religion of Peace! Vote for your fierce advocate and I will bring the same kind of peace to America, which my wife has not been proud of till I got elected. We need to stop that hatred of Islam and let them practice their religion as they see fit!
Bareback Hussein Osama
Yeah, and do not listen to that fool Ken Mehlman who says gays should make common cause with GOP to fight radical Islam.
PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS
Considering that family members frequently torture, maim, and kill other family members for “shaming” them and or their religion this guy can actually be considered lucky……..
[img]http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/08/03/article-1299799-0AA9625C000005DC-972_468x625.jpg[/img]
j
@PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS: That’s horriffic, that poor woman..
Bareback Hussein Osama
@j: Respect Islamic faith and traditions!
scott ny'er
just terrible.
Skyler
Why did someone hit LOL on this story? WTF.
declanto
So call me a bigot, but any culture that condones mutilation, stoning, whipping, poisoning, acid attacks on children, ad infinitum is despicable.
Queer Supremacist
@declanto: Which reminds me, where IS Bill Perdue these days?
Oh right, he’s not here shitting on this thread because he can’t spin this against Israel, seeing how the victim here was an Arab.
This is not a mere “cultural difference.” This is barbarianism, plain and simple. There can be no tolerance for barbarianism.
“Tolerance becomes a crime when applied to evil” — Thomas Mann
declanto
@Queer Supremacist: If, by barbarianism you mean the stone-age practices of a feudal, tribal culture we’re in agreement. However, when it’s codified into law, it becomes something innately more horrific. Bill and the homonazi who usually accompanies his rants are conspicuously absent.
declanto
@Queer Supremacist: Oh, hi, Homonazi, didn’t recognise your “voice” without the accompaniment of Bill’s counter basso 😀
Queer Supremacist
@declanto: Not funny. And you have a lot of nerve calling me a Nazi when:
A. I am a Jew who cannot trace his family tree back more than four generations thanks to the actual Nazis.
B. I agree with everything you said about these laws. I despise Islam for these reasons. And I hold the same beliefs about Christianity, yet somehow I see a sickening double standard. Apparently it’s okay for non-westerners and non-whites to hold bigoted beliefs
Bill is the real Nazi. He wants the land robbing Muslim war criminals who call themselves “Palestinians” to rule over all of what is now Israel, not just the West Bank and Gaza Strip, thus sentencing all gays in the region, whether Jewish or Arab, to death.
To attack Islam is to defend humanity. To defend Islam is to attack humanity.
declanto
@Queer Supremacist: Oh, it’s well-known you’re a jew, you’d hardly miss an opportunity to tell anybody. Sorry to know also that your family has suffered from the holocaust. Even so, your self-admitted Queer supremacist profile echoes most of the nazis’ self-aggrandizing didain for otherness. Sorry, Queer darling, but the shoe seems to fit.
declanto
Ironic, dear Queer Supremacist, that we agree so consistently only to smash up on your singular intolerance.
Queer Supremacist
@declanto: I thing gay people need to stop being so fucking tolerant of heterosexuality and of Christianity and Islam. These “people” declared war on us. Why should we be fighting when we have so many common enemies of which we should be intolerant, of which we should be hateful. I don’t think it’s fair to admonish me for beliefs that you yourself hold. Perhaps I don’t understand what you mean by my “singular intolerance”. Do you mean my disdain for heterosexuality?
I talk about my Judaism here because apparently it’s a good way to expose the anti-semites here for what they are. I’m not even very religious, but I’m not an atheist either. Of all the three Abrahamic faiths, you can’t really lump the Jews in with the others because, in perspective, even the most homophobic orthodox Jew will probably do damage to fewer people than a like-minded Christian or Muslim. And considering how Judaism has been the target of hatred for these two heretic cults that couldn’t exist without it (and one of them, in a remarkable act of cognitive dissonance, worships a Jew), I think that has in some way affected how Jews perceive homosexuality. Certainly the Reform and Reconstructionist denominations, for all their other shortcomings, have largely been very supportive of us. Even if I didn’t believe in God I would still be a Jew culturally and ethnically.
But disdain for otherness? For me to truly disdain “otherness” would require me to hate everyone who wasn’t me or differed from me in any way. I don’t. I do not hate or judge people on the basis of race, but I have no more tolerance for those who use their race as an excuse to justify their homophobia than I do for those who use religion to do the same. My hatred has a very narrow and specific target, and it is retaliatory. I don’t just hate for the sake of hating. And what they did to this boy is exhibit A as to why I hate what I hate. My mindset isn’t “eww, they wear a tacky cross/crescent around their necks.” It’s “eww, they foment hatred, violence, and bigotry based on a mistranslation of a very old book.”
As for your “homonazi” comment, none of my beliefs on how to treat the enemies of gays, nor my beliefs on the role of government, or the economy, or anything else, overlap with those of the Nazis. I am against authoritarianism and totalitarianism, be it economic or social. These religions hate because of ignorance, so the only effective nonviolent cure for ignorance is education. Unfortunately, the willfully ignorant cannot be swayed by facts or reason, and many of them are in power and will stop at nothing to attack and suppress us. Thus, we must be ready to defend ourselves with the use of force if necessary.
I also despise the double standard, which is prevalent here, that allows us to rightly attack Christianity for its homophobia but attacks those who attack Islam as racist because this hateful religion happens to be practiced primarily by non-white non-westerners who probably would have a blasé attitude towards homosexuality if they were not Muslims.
declanto
@Queer Supremacist: these hypothetical non-white non-western non-practitioners of islam, many of whom may be semitic,(reminder: arabs ARE a semitic people) may have a blasè attitude toward homosexuality…then again, maybe not.
Whatever. You preach a reformed,reconstructionist preference in judaism, yet leave no room for the same reformed/reconstructed form of the other Abrahamic faiths. I am aware the most recent reform/reconstruction of islam is even more intolerant and violently antiwestern (wahabi). but what about sufi, for instance?
Then there are the reformed/reconstructed and infinitely more inclusive christion denominations whom you still include in your condemnations. Also, the younger generations of heteros who support and include the gblt community. You persist in stuffing them all into one nasty bag. Funny rules.
As for my use of the term “nazi”, sorry, may be slightly insensitive of me. I use the term in its more modern vernacular meaning, such as foodnazis, gymnazis, fashionazis, etc. meaning people who have all the answers and tell all us ignorant laypersons just what we should be doing, eating, wearing et al. Peace.
Queer Supremacist
@declanto: Well I will cop to being a grammar and spelling Nazi.
I am aware of attempts to reform Islam. And I hope they succeed. But facts are facts, and while there may be sum parts that are not intolerant, just as there are in Christianity, the homophobic whole still trumps the few sum parts that are tolerant. And until that changes I cannot tolerate these beliefs. And the homophobic texts in the Old and New Testament and the Koran are still there in black and white.
I have other disagreements with many of the pro-gay Christian denominations relating to other issues, but that is not relevant to this discussion.
I have never claimed to have all the answers. But I have plenty of questions, and while I intend to find the answers, I doubt I’ll be satisfied with them.
Bottom line: I just want them to stop killing gay people.
declanto
Now you’re speaking my language. I am self-imposing a moratorium on all divisive issues concerning the muslim community until after September 11th, in honor of the honorable dead. After, I’m willing to debate again in a civilized manner.