Richard AmmonIt takes great courage to confront the brick wall of systemic homophobia in Morocco.
By Richard Ammon
GlobalGayz.com
May 28, 2010
Read this News Report (http://www.magharebia.com/cocoon/awi/xhtml1/en_GB/features/awi/features/2010/05/27/feature-03) or read the Previous Blog, May 27, on this site (http://globalgayz.blogspot.com/2010/05/courageous-gay-magazine-mithly-debuts.html) about a gay magazine published for Moroccan gay people and distributed in major cities in Morocco. A daring first.
Even if the publishers and activists are in Madrid, understandably, this action takes great courage to confront the brick wall of systemic homophobia in Morocco.
Despite criminal threats and social outrage this magazine and the gay Morrocan organization Kif Kif (English version) are undaunted because they see the rightness of the ’cause’ for freedom of expression and the rightness of LGBT people to declare their equal presence.
The magazine does not advocate action or try to ‘recruit’ straights to be gay. No pornography, no criticism of the King, no call for a Pride festival.
The rightness of the cause comes from politics but from the objective certainty–the nature–of being homosexually attracted to a same-sex other. Unlike religion and politics that have their bases in opinion, myth, imagined stories, alleged traditional values, that is, ‘invented truths’ for the sake of conformity and power control, homosexuality is a universal truth of nature that is not imagined or derived from opinion. It is a verity of the natural world like speech, upright walking or sight.
With the certainty of this inherent fact, LGBT activists in many countries are now taking action to demand the world listen to this ‘natural selection’ phenomenon; homosexuality as a innate variant of humanness that is no more harmful or deviant than left-handedness.
It is the social crime of homophobia that creates the harm, the violence, the corruption of young minds, the blindness of clergy, the bigotry of politicians.
The 21st century is becoming a watershed century for outing the truth of sexual orientation as it slowly drills through unexamined dense traditions and unchallenged social ignorance that pervade most countries around the world.
Activists will be harmed and maimed or worse in the tortured process of coming further out in the streets and in the media. Innocent non-activist gay people (LGBT people) will continue to be bashed and killed because of gossip or truth about their ‘homophillia’ (attraction to the same gender).
The list of real heroes and the battalions of Pride marchers, writers, artists, parents-and-families of gays, out gay politicians, actors, musicians and countless small gay organizations in countries like Morocco, Belarus, Turkey, Malawi, Uganda, Nepal, Iceland, Honduras–are all filled with the inner light and force of their inherent sexual truths.
They deeply feel the cause of holding that light up to lead the way for the present and next generations of young and not-young LGBT citizens who know and love their own gay truth and want a better life beyond a suffocating and duplicitous closet.
Courage, bravery, endurance, resolution, spirit, spunk. Such is the food of these heroic legions, these inspired Davids against stupefied Goliaths.
This weekend we will see another battle between these enemies as Moscow gays stage a peaceful Pride event against the prohibition from the mayor of Moscow. As in the past five years the day promises to be injurious and hopefully not too bloody. Stay tuned.
