The Ink

Because the first time I really felt free was that day spent at Brighton while seagulls were peacefully gliding above the pier.

Because Elphaba didn’t let anyone pull her down, she flew away when everyone told her she couldn’t even if she is always seen as wicked.

Because Jonathan Livingston reached the highest skies by leaving his flock, flying alone and reaching every limit.

On a finger that will stay ringless as long as I’m in my country, the seagull will forever stay. 

I have had this dream of flying away for 4 years and when it finally hit me, I started having doubts about it. Why would I ever leave home? It did not make sense.

And then, thanks to Mr. Chakhtoura and Marwan Charbel, I came back to my senses.

I want to leave the country I have learned to understand, the city I have grown to love, the people with whom I have spent my life because of them.

I think that fighting back can change something but how absurd is it? To fight for a justice that is given to me elsewhere? To fight for rights that are as basic as the ones we are fighting for?

At the end of the day, I am just checking another box on my calendar, another number on my countdown.

“The Motherland don’t love you. The Fatherland don’t love you. So why love anything?” (Vampire Weekend – Ya Hey)

But then I read this:

“Think about the experiences of marginalization, oppression, and violence you may have lived though, and learn about the ones you haven’t. Take your time to realize what kind of world you’re living in. In whatever way you can, learn to fight back”

            Discrimination only fuels your power to stand up for what you believe in. The world we live in is far from being even close to perfect and for an Idealist like me, it is every man’s duty to help it reach this utopia.

            Fight, fight back, in whatever way you can.

Marathon for Equality.

I can't stop stressing about how important it is to raise your voice, to speak out.
It helps you let go of your emotions and lets others identify to your story. 
Now is the perfect time to do so.

Join the Marathon for Equality!

If you're short on inspiration, just read what happened in Dekwaneh again and let that anger control your fingers. Write about homophobia, the LGBT community in Lebanon. Share anything you feel like sharing.
If you still can't find inspiration, think about food! (It seems to always work for me...) The three submissions with the highest number of "Likes" will win a dinner for two at Bardo.
Once you're done, send your article to raynbow.org@gmail.com to share it on the LebIDAHO website and the Lebanese LGBT Monitor.

Winners will be announced on the 17th of May, the International Day Against Homophobia.

Don't forget to spread the word. Use the hashtags #LebLGBT and #DekAbuse.

A Call to Arms

We are scared because the law is not on our side.
We hide because the law is not on our side.
We pretend to be someone we're not, we live this double life alternating between the person everyone wants us to be and the person we really are. We live for those couple of hours every week during which we can be true to ourselves, whether it is by writing in our diary, on our blog or spending the night in a gay club. But eventually, we go back to hiding our true identity because the law is not on our side.
We try to fight, we do it in secret, behind our mask, our anonymity. But we quickly lose hope because our efforts are fruitless in a country like this one, where traditions are so rooted into everyone's mind that even the most logic reasoning cannot budge it. We stop trying, eventually, because the law is not on our side.

Now, thanks to Antoine Chakhtoura, the law is on our side. For once we can fight back with confidence and hope because every single decision he took was wrong and illegal.
And for that Mr. Chakhtoura has my sincere gratitude.

His accusations had no proof and he refused to investigate.
His raid and his closing down were illegal.
His arrests and his questionings were illegal.
His verbal, physical and sexual abuses against  Lebanese citizens were illegal.

Everything he did was morally and professionally wrong.
Fighting back became so easy.
This is why I am asking each and everyone of you to join us. Spread the word, raise your voice: tweet, blog everything that passes through your mind with the hashtags #LebLGBT and #DekAbuse and we will share what you have to say.

What happened in Dekwaneh last week? Read the article on NOW Lebanon.

Share this flag & spread the word!

Stop Homophobia

We all know that Lebanese people do not really respect traffic symbols, but I do hope that this one will catch their attention. 

With International Day Against Homophobia coming up on the 17th of May, we thought that this was an appropriate time to start spraying Beirut's wall. 

But little did we know what was happening in the dark streets of Ashrafieh.  

While the gays were happily running around with their spray paint, a little straight couple decided to park right in front of us and conceive a child. 

Now, unless the poor guy was gay or the girl was really really bad, I fail to see how procreating can take that long. 

LM and I had to hide during one whole hour, waiting for the silhouettes in the white car to stop moving back and forth. 

Walaw?! 

Anyway, while our last graffiti (which has been painted over) was all about spreading the love, this one is about stoping the hate. 

What's the difference? I don't know. I guess it's pretty much the same thing. 

Hope you like it :-) 

Don't forget to check LM's post! 

To Fight or Not To Fight?

Let's set the background: Catholic school, religion class every week, priests talking about God'ish stuff.

I've had the luck to get the coolest religion teachers through the years: Last year,  guy who failed to become a priest (I have no idea how he did that); and this year, an open-minded French women.
However, a friend of mine got the mean grumpy fanatic priest who pukes rosaries and shoot crosses out of his... hm... eyes.

That friend of mine?
If you watch Will & Grace, she's Grace.
If you don't, she's a gay man, whose purpose in life is to find the perfect gay husband.
Let's call her Grace.

So, that priest had the bad idea to talk about homosexuality.
"In a corrupted country, during wartime, the number of pedophiles and homosexuals rises dramatically."


I don't even want to picture what happened in Grace's head at that time.
And that is how the 50-minute argument about gay rights started.

When she came back to class she was so mad, shaking, screaming and tearing up.
What did he say, what did she say? Oh, the usual. Love versus Hate, Reason versus Religion, Open-Mindness versus Stubbornness.

It is, however, what she said to me that got me thinking.
When I asked why did she give the poor idiot attention, why did she fight, when she knew that he wasn't going to change his mind about anything, she said "You gave up, I didn't."

Did I? Did I just give up?
If I were in her situation I would just have randomly commented and gave the guy a I-just-killed-you-40-different-times-inside-my-head-and-it-ain't-pretty look.
(I have a lot of looks.)

He gave his life to the dude in heavens, he's a priest.
How are some 16-year-old kids going to change his whole life?

He's an idiot. He's stubborn.
His ideas about gay people are never going to affect me.

Now if one of my friend said something like that, he/she would have been cut into tiny pieces and buried under a rainbow.

Yes, I lost my faith in these old Lebanese narrow-minded guys that think they got everything right.
Is it a bad thing?

They don't deserve my time or effort.
They're just gonna rot in rainbow-hell, burned by the rainbow-flames and eaten by the rainbow-devils and I'm gonna forget all about them cause I'll be far far away in rainbow-heaven, where the rainbow-sun is shining and the rainbow-birds are singing.