<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML><HEAD> <META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> <META content="MSHTML 6.00.2900.2912" name=GENERATOR> <STYLE></STYLE> </HEAD> <BODY bgColor=#ffffff> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I would not want to minimise the importance of homophobic legislation in the Middle East, nor throw up some culturally relativistic smoke screen, but when these charges become a part of a western diplomatic-military offensive, the truth is bound to get a bit twisted.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>After all, it is not so very long ago that western accounts of the Orient invited us to distrust Arabs and Persians precisely for their supposed effeminacy. How long ago, exactly? Well just before the point that gay sex was legalised in the West, if you want to know (in 1967 in the UK). Caricatures of lascivious Arab homosexuals, limp-wristed, heavy-lidded and eye-lashed were a mainstay of Anglo-Saxon pulp fiction. Perhaps the last echo of that stereotype can be seen in the Turkish prison rape in Alan Parker's Midnight Express.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>If the Middle East has turned to anti-gay legislation, that suggests that it _is_ adopting western values, just more traditional ones. 'Get with the program guys, we like gays now!' insist today's western propagandists.</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>