Bombing the Runway 

It appears I've fallen horribly out of the gay loop. While sitting thinking about my next column for Advocate.com I decided to snoop around the Web site to see what's going on. What I found was that one third of the stories revolved around Project Runway. Now, I'd like to comment on that, but I don't watch it. I'm not a fashionista, unless you count my seeing The Devil Wears Prada and seeing absolutely nothing wrong with the lead character or the way she behaves.

My mind is elsewhere: in the world, in the Middle East, in New York City. I'd like to be able to write a gay editorial right now about a pressing issue in the gay community, but world events are such that they transcend sexuality. We are poised on the brink of WWIII, for those that are paying attention, and gays will die just as easily as anyone else.

For instance, I think of Iraq often right now. Remember that, our forgotten war? It's not as sexy as the crisis in Israel, but that's because we've lost the battle and the country is in civil war. And as I think of those who are being pulled from their homes for sectarian reasons, I recall an article I read in the March 23 issue of Gay City News that reported:

Following a death-to-gays fatwa issued last October by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, death squads of the Badr Corps have been systematically targeting gay Iraqis for persecution and execution, gay Iraqis say. But when they ask for help and protection from U.S. occupying authorities in the Green Zone, the secure area officialdom has carved out within Baghdad, gays Iraqis are met with indifference and derision.

"The Badr Corps is committed to the sexual cleansing of Iraq," said Ali Hili, a 33-year-old gay Iraqi exile in London who, with some 30 other gay Iraqis who have fled to the United Kingdom, five months ago founded the Abu Nawas Group there to support persecuted gay Iraqis. The group is named for a revered eighth-century classical poet of Arab and Persian descent known throughout Middle East cultures and famous for his poems in praise of same-sex love.

I watch CNN almost nonstop while I'm home. Truly. Wake up to it. Go to sleep to it, or MSNBC or another news station. And not once, and I mean not once, did I hear this story. Now, I've heard every possible human interest story out of the region. One person goes missing from TheChristian Science Monitor and the world ends. But gays are being beaten or killed and the American news agencies don't report it. I did a search on the Web. The story is out there and it's true. And like most persecution of gays and lesbians, no one really cares.

Even our own media is basically missing on this. We did a glut of stories about this in March when the news hit, but not since then. Faded from memory, I guess it couldn't compete with the glamour of the Runway. But the deaths are still occurring and the constitution of the very country, with wording that our president himself and his staff saw and thus approved, a country in which gay and lesbian taxpayers in this country have a vested interest, codifies the persecution. Oh, but innocent Lebanese are suffering, forget gays being slaughtered. And Logo can't be bothered to do any real reporting on this; they've got to fund a new season of Noah's Arc or Gay Ghost.

Then there is the Israeli crisis. As some may know, WorldPride was planned for early August in Israel. And go on it did, through August 12, albeit with a more scaled-down event and a canceled parade. It took courage, both to plan and attend the event. Fringe groups in Israel sent out a flyer offering a $4,500 reward to anyone who killed a gay person. And we think the worst thing about going to gay pride festivals in this country is finding parking, or the price of beer. Try having a bounty on your head as you mill about this or that event.

I think of all of these things because now more than ever it is important for gays and lesbians to remember we are residents of the world, and the world is bleeding from wounds all over. It's so easy to get focused on our community, on what's wrong, what's going right, what needs to be done. But we mustn't become myopic. We need to remember that there are bigger issues out there, but that these issues at their core relate directly to our plight as well.

We are not in a culture clash in our country or any other. Cultures don't clash, they compete--that's the nature of cultures. Ask any sociologist. But today, around the world, including in our country, we are in a war of the educated versus the ignorant, the antiquated ways of thinking versus a new enlightened thinking for the 21st century. We are doing battle every day in most regions of the world, and what we're fighting are beliefs grounded in religions that haven't changed since the Dark Ages. Most conflicts in the world right now have the very same roots as the persecution gays and lesbians have to fight in countless countries across the globe: believers of outdated ideologies trying desperately to hold on to their power through division, hatred, and persecution, all done in the name of some god or under the order of some ambitious dictator (and yes, that includes ours).

And what's sad is that in those conflicts the West is seen as socially progressive, as accepting, as loose, even perverse--and yet those of us who live here know that we are moving backwards; our people are becoming more like those fringe groups offering rewards for dead gay people. Trust me: If Falwell could, he would.

Looking at the world and turning a blind eye--because it's too overwhelming or you don't think there's anything to be done or you assume it doesn't relate to you--is a narrow view that does nothing to help anyone or anything. The fact is, it's the same battle. Israel is fighting to the death because it refuses to be told it can't exist. Gays and lesbians worldwide fight the same battle for the same reasons. Israel is told it shouldn't be there because of God--some god somewhere said this or that land should be for this or that person and war has ensued ever since.

Same thing. Some god somewhere said being gay is wrong and thus we shouldn't exist or have rights and must fight for our very survival.

Yes, we're all fighting the same war whether we know it or not. We have more in common with the countless who are fighting and dying simply because of who they are. The Sunni being dragged from his home, the Shiite being hung from a tree, the Israeli being kidnapped, the Lebanese being bombed, the genocide in Darfur, or the three men who were beaten with baseball bats while leaving San Diego gay pride in July. It's the same battle. We're all fighting the same thing, and it's not extremism. It's leftovers of a more ignorant era that refuse to evolve, refuse to move to the next level of existence, refuse to change and adapt.

And the sad part is, I see no end in sight because no one knows how to fight any of these battles. Terrorists can make bombs out of liquids, so suddenly we can't take our cosmetic products on planes. And that solves the problem? Hell no. People scream for peace in the Middle East, but when they sit down to talk Syria, the Hezbollah, and Iran aren't at the table, so what real peace will be obtained? Gays get attacked or discriminated against and then fight for this or that law and think a victory is won, but no lasting agreement is worked out. And that's because the only solution to any of these crises is to evolve, and we seem stuck in some primordial ooze, unwilling to move toward a future of real solutions.

To end the war on terror we must change our foreign policies radically, in ways that may not please us. We stop sucking on the tit of Middle Eastern oil so that we don't have to give in to their demands or needs.

To end the war against gays, we break the death grip religion has on our government and on our society. We get rid of wannabe dictators, be they in the White House or in the pulpit. We observe the Constitution instead of amending it.

And how, Karel, do we do all this? Education. Every conflict in every nation, including the fight for gay equality in the United States, revolves around the fact that the ignorant are making the decisions. America is ignorant. It simply is. There's an education crisis. Ask Oprah or Bill Gates, as they make it their new campaign. We're 20th or worse in the world in terms of what we know about most subjects. And our stupidity only helps those in power to stay in power. They know our schools are failing. They know our children aren't learning what they need to, and even what they do learn is closely monitored. Religion still affects what they learn, directly or indirectly.

Face it: We're not such a bright nation, and I have the stats to prove it. And as I look at all the things the gay media is giving me to consume, I'm not sure we're very smart as a culture either.

And the same applies to most countries in conflict. The educated few lead the uneducated masses, and they often lead them into war.

Education seems like a simple solution, and it is. An educated person doesn't discriminate against people because they're Jewish, Muslim, gay, straight, black, white. It's incongruous with an educated mind to discriminate based solely on religion, sexual orientation, or race. But that education must be a real one, free of limits, free of the confines of any religious or political doctrine. And that kind of education is very hard to find.

Well, there's always Canada.

The world extends beyond a runway, outside of a gay center, and beyond Another Gay Movie. And as we look at the world, we'll find we have more in common with those in conflict than we think. We're all just fighting to be, to exist in peace. But let's be clear about who and what we're fighting. The war isn't against people, it's against ignorance, institutionalized bigotry rooted in antiquated ideals of centuries past.

We're fighting a war for the future and the weapons aren't guns or even well-intentioned bills or laws. The weapons are our youths. We must educate them in an unbiased way, and this means completely dismantling our educational system and rebuilding it in such a way that our founding fathers would be proud--but that, of course, is another editorial. Until then we remain a stupid culture engaged in stupid conflicts with grim outcomes.