Pierre Saliba discusses homosexuality objectively on VoiceBook Sawt El Noujoum

By Peter Hayat
Raynbow volunteer, LGBT rights activist
Friday, Feb 18, 2011

Beirut – Who would give a law to lovers?  Love is unto itself a higher law.  ~Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy, 524 A.D

“If I didn’t define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people’s fantasies for me and eaten alive.” Audre Lorde

What is love? Is it about an appearance or a certain physical criterion? Love flies above and beyond. It is  feeling like everything is alright when looking into that special someone’s eyes, it is  sensing that you’re connecting to your other half in the midst of the flow of destiny’s inertia, it’s looking past all the physical imperfections right to a person’s core. In short love knows no gender. So why should gender decide who can show that love?

On thursday Feb 17^th 2011, a mixture of good intentions, love and basic human rights were discussed on Sawt El Noujoum, a Lebanese FM radio station, Voicebook was the program aired at 9 pm Beirut Local time.

The subject of gay existence and gay rights started becoming more visible in the Lebanese media for the last 2 years, most noticeably since the beginning of summer 2010. Zaven, Maktabi among others tackled the subject from the approach to a patient, a psychopath, a sociopath; that’s what our culture taught them and us that whoever doesn’t follow the stereotype is an outcast and should be put to termination. Some of the programs on other local TV channels weakly tried to put a human face to the homosexual experience but then ended the episode with a vague conclusion…. If I was to know about gay people from them, I would have run as fast I can because who wants to be around “queer people”.

For the first time the approach to the gay issue in Lebanon was very logical and scientific. The introducer started talking about Kinsey scale of human sexuality, sexual orientation and sexual identity and the difference between them, getting to the removal of “homosexuality” as a psychiatric illness from the WHO list of diseases in 1973, and then to the opinion of the mainstream scientific committees in North America and Europe, the recent repeal of DADT in the U.S and the dichotomy in the opinion of the different denominations of the Christian faith about gay rights. There was a mention of the countries in which gay civil marriage and/or a civil union can be conducted.

This is a refined approach to the gay subject from different perspectives.

Thumbs up to Sawt El Noujoum, Voicebook, and Pierre Saliba who did a great job informing the ignorant and advocating for a bullied minority in Lebanon and in the world.

Thank you very much Mr. Saliba.