You can fault Michael Lucas for many things. The porn star-producer is an Islamaphobe. Palestine hater. Trash-talker. But we’ll give the guy credit for, in his own special way, raising awareness about homophobia and atrocities against gays in the Middle East. Something he says at least one leading Gay Inc. group is doing a crap job of.
After attending Monday’s International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission 20th anniversary fundraising gala in New York (disclosure: Queerty sponsored the event), Lucas walked away wholly disappointed. Sure, IGLHRC is fighting the good fight in places like Uganda, but its alleged lack of focus in Islamic countries like Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq, as well as Palestine territories, has Lucas “not just unimpressed. It left me deeply disappointed.”
“Nowhere else in the world, since the end of the Third Reich, has such systematic oppression and extermination been committed against gays and lesbians,” writes Lucas. “At the event, Amikaeyla Gaston, the Jamaican-born writer and poet, read movingly from her autobiography about being raped by two men in Jamaica. She spoke about asking her gay friend to help her. At least she had hope for help. People in Islamic countries have no hope for help. They are persecuted by their families in league with their clerics in league with their governments. They have nowhere to turn. Not even, it seems, the international LGBT community, which prefers to hold a cloak of silence over that part of the world. IGLHRC has staff assigned to this area, so the organization must know what goes on there, and for all I know, it has useful programs in the region. If it does, the group prefers to keep silent about it. So why does the region which today is most cruel toward gay and lesbian people get a free pass? Is it politically incorrect to get involved where the need is most dire? Is it once again the word “Islam” that makes criticism and, indeed, humane intervention impossible? Or are we just simply too intimidated by the Islamists and their fatwas to help those of our gay brothers and sisters who are today in most danger? I am infuriated that an organization that is actually familiar with this situation and that could at least make visible the abuse, if not stop it, chooses to keep silent. The betrayal of our brothers and sisters who are suffering under Islam is infuriating, dishonest, cowardly, and a sickness of the politically correct. IGLHRC grew out of a brave mission to the old Soviet Union in the early ’90s to lobby against the Soviet sodomy law that punished consensual sex between men with five years imprisonment.”
Do we need more focus on anti-gay violence and attitudes in the Middle East? Absolutely. And international organizations that solicit funding with grand, global goals of fighting homophobia worldwide owe its donors (and LGBTs in the region) to do just that. But it’s not as if IGLHRC has been completely silent on the matter.
How about we take this to the next level?
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We’ll be the first to say these groups can, and should to more. But Lucas once again misappropriates his own priorities (ridding the world of Islam) for everyone else’s. We’d like to say, at the very least, Lucas’ comments “spur debate.” What type of debate, we’re not sure.
hardmannyc
Oh, yeah, it’s Thursday so there’s a Michael Lucas post. tomorrow we get the Davey Wavey creature. Then on Monday, Lucas, Tuesday, Davey Wavey …
Eric
” … CAN’T believe NOBODY cares about the Middle East”
Who does Queerty hire as editors? … high-school drop-outs?
Eric
” … CAN’T believe NOBODY cares about the Middle East”
Where does Queerty find these writers/editors? … are they high-school drop-outs?
Keldawgs
I saw Lawrence of Arabia for the first time yesterday. Just Saying.
I’m tired of all this. My opinions are dry.
ousslander
It probably wouldn’t fit into the groups ideas western/conservatives evil and the poor arabs are oppresased but really good.
delurker
I do care about the insane right wingers who are in charge in Israel right now. Does that count?
Kieran
I don’t doubt for a minute that gays in the Islamic world are oppressed, but I’d rather be gay living in an Islamic country than a Palestinian living in the West bank or Gaza Ghetto right now.
terrwill
What is really sad is that a pornster is one of the very few persons with any sort of public soapbox is spewing the truth about the ismamic scumbag savages and their sick demented wauys of life. I am so tired of persons saying “its just a small minority” of the islamic populations that engage in sick demented behaviour. Two Gay teens 14 and 16 years old when they were sentenced to 1000 lashes each which resulted in a year of torture. The body can only endure approximatley 40 lashes at time, by then the flesh and muscle are being ripped off the body. They were subjected to a series of lashings and “recovery” in a filthy prison cell for a year and a half. Then right after the last series of lashes were administered new crimes were “discovered” that they had raped a fellow teen. The two were then taken to a public square placed on a flat bed truck. The nooses were placed on their young necks and then the blindfolds were taken off so they could see each other and a cheering mob of thousands that had gathered to watch these two boys be put to death Instead of standing on a trap door to insure a quick death, the truck was slowly driven forward thus ensuring a slow, torturous death by suffocation while they saw thousands of these scumbags cheering as they died.
Or how about the rape victim who “dishonored her family” and was buried halfway in the ground. And then was stoned to death by a mob including her Father and Brothers Sorry these savages are simply not human. There is no way a being possessing human emotions can partake and cheer on the madness that occurs in the islamic cultures. 19 of these savages who lived among us in the US gleefully turned airliners into guided missles killing almost 3,000 innocent Americans. It is only a matter of time when not if one of these savages is going to gain possession of a nuclear weapon and detonate it in the United States………
A major earthquake that would reduce the entire mid east into a pile of smoldering rubble would be one of the few things that can save the earth
Robert
Given that Michael Lucas pretty much produces straight up propaganda for Israel I don’t give the first shit about anything he says.
terrwill
PS: Any islam defenders please use the googles images and punch in “Gay teens hung iran” and view all the gut wrenching photos of those boys crying as they were in a cage being brought to their deaths and then pics of the nooses being placed on their necks, and then as they are hanging dead for the simple fact that they were born Gay prior to defending these savages
EWE
Sorry, i am emotionally drained right here in the U.S. I will try harder though.
EdWoody
The problem is, Michael Lucas is the porn equivalent of Bono. Whatever valid political views and opinions he may or may not have, they are drowned out by his obnoxious personality and a general feeling of, “Why should I be listening to you anyway?” He is his own worst enemy.
Harpy
As a practicing muslim and queer individual, yes I agree that there is great injustice in the middle-east and Islamic countries as a whole. But Lucas pretends as if the there are no right-wingers and homophobes in Israel. It would be foolish for any queer person to throw their political loyalties for either side. Heterosexist opinons would like to see sexual diversity destroyed. It doesn’t matter if it chants verses from the Torah or the Quran. Ignorance/savagery is embedded in the patrirachal structuring of many cultures. It’s naive to assume that Islamic cultures are only guilty of this sin.
Thomas Reed
Michael Lucas highlights a fact that is conveniently kept hidden but has never been disproved — namely that thousands of people are killed in Islamic countries simply because they are gay or lesbian. I fail to understand what that has to do with right wingers and homophobes in Israel? There are homophobes everywhere. But only in Islamic countries do they operate under the protection and with the authority of the government. That is a radically different thing.
Harpy
Thousands? I’m interested in the numbers.
Queers face intense discrimination, yes. But thousands dead? Prove it please.
ousslander
I’ll take my chances with a a democratic israel versus Muslim countries.One of the main reasons the palestinians are in such bad shape is their leaders, Like Arafat who looted billions so his wife and kid could live in luixury in France.
Anyone who thnks dif try living as an open gay man in Palestine or Saudi Arabia.
terrwill
@Harpy: Dear Harpy, please follow directions on post #10. How the fcuk can you even think of defending these savages??
PS: heres some numbers for you:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/17/iraqi-gays-targeted-bruta_n_261155.html
Tallskin
I am with terriwill, Islam is an utter evil
Jimmy
I could not care less what this unscrupulous shit-stain has to say when he can, in the same breath, justify his anti-semitism (and yes, Palestinian people are semitic people too) and then talk about homophobia. We should definitely look elsewhere for advocates, ones who agree with the principle that none are free when even one is in bondage.
strumpetwindsock
@ Terrwill
If I made the same statement: “How can you defend these savages” in reference to Americans, how would you feel? The fact is that your country has been responsible for far more death and suffering around the world than Islam, and you have a terrible record when it comes to recognizing gay rights.
I agree with you that fundamentalism is a great problem, but can we please try to deal with the issue without blaming all muslime (many of whom are gay), and step off the moral high ground?
Racist and discriminatory statements do nothing to solve his problem. They just make people angry.
Harpy
I defend the “savages” because I understand that the hatred and the discrimination rests not in the religion but in the abject poverty, political frustration and shifting societies. I understand discrimination at the hands of Muslim fundamentalists. I loathe to use personal experience as proof, but as someone who is queer and Muslim (albeit in North America) I have personally experienced the hatred.
And yes, I will repeat this again. The hatred does not emanate from the religion of Islam. Sure, a Patriarchal reading of scripture and theology will certainly place queers in the domain of sinners. But certainly Islam is not alone this struggle. Additionally, queer theology is very new to democratized, financially stable first world. I think the political and economic culture of Islamic countries needs to change before such theological and cultural changes can develop.
You article, though very illuminating, presents facts about Iraq- a country that is embroiled in war, sectarian violence etc. In any situation such as this minorities are always the first ones to go. (something I guess about heterosexual masculinity needing to assert its identity and go back to the basics kinda deal) Darling, you have to learn to contextualize any information before you make up your mind. One must learn to read not simply what is in front of us but also what is around us.
John VM
Maybe this idiot needs to take a trip to Israel and talk to the orthodox jews.. Maybe they can watch one of his movies together? I’m sure he’ll be dead in no time!
John VM
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1254962/
watch it..
wendylevy
Just discovered this post and the artist mentioned at the IGLHRC event is NOT Amikaeyla Gaston. It is StaceyAnn Chin. Fact-checking would be responsible journalism, so I guess that’s why it didn’t happen.