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Even though homosexuality in Lebanon in rejected by the government and the public, some parts of the country support it and view it as a natural relationship like the relationship between a male and a female. Those who support homosexuality differ based on the location, living conditions, education, income and religion. According to Lebanese Sadar report, homosexuality events are accepted in some cities while it is strongly rejected in small villages. Moreover, mainly some Muslims and Christian sectors in Lebanon discourage the phenomena of homosexuality and refuse to accept it.
Indeed, homosexuals are too vulnerable to be abused by their families, particularity because of the customs and traditions of Lebanese society, according to which people keep living with their families even when they are adult. Once might think that only women are subject to, honor crimes, but homosexuals are also victims of such crimes. Even though different charges and penalties which are issued on imposed on homosexuals and the government attempts to frustrate them, they are still fighting for their rights performing a remarkable achievements supporting LGBT on the social and political class.
Indeed, many NGO’s, which call for human rights, placed the issue of homosexuality on their top list. MIRSAD is a governmental and private organization that is concerned with the issues of human rights as they aim to spread awareness on the Lebanese society in order to create democracy and equality. In one of the cases the MIRSAD defended protested against the police operation as they arrested and integrated with the owner of the one of the LGBT website. As a result the MIRSAD was not able to achieve successes as their director was also arrested for protesting (10).
However, the organization did not stop supporting LGBT and human right issues. Another organization is Helem, which aim to spread awareness about sexual disease such as HIV and STIs. Indeed, Helem mostly tend to focus on the right and health of LGBT. In fact, Helem state that their belief is to “consistently promoted the idea that knowledge is the key to openness, tolerance and acceptance” by educating Lebanese society about homosexuality and their rights. In addition, Helem educates the public and policymakers through offering real data, arranging effective dialogues, events, workshops, lectures and media.
Furthermore, with the rejection of the public to LGBT individuals, they created their own private internment environments hidden from the public eyes. Besides the widespread of online websites that seek to introduce LGBT people to each other, Lebanon has many gay bars and cruising places to gather and socialize with others. Yet, the nightclubs are not specifically named as gay bar instead they contain American names such as G-sport and Orange Mechanic. According to the article “The Gay and Lesbian review” posted in the worldwide newspaper it indicated that homosexual’s safe place to meet is the “pornography theaters and Turkish baths” even though these places are created for straight people yet the homosexuals mostly take advantage of them.
Moreover, the success of LGBT is increasing as many organizations are fighting and supporting their rights. A remarkable success was achieved in January, 2014 in the case of a transgender woman, who had sex with a man, the Lebanon judge Naji El Dahdah in the court of Beirut considered the relationship as normal and not violating Article 534 of the Panel Code. Indeed, rule was hidden since January 2014 and was posted in April 2014. Regardless of the sanctions and harsh sentence in LGBT, yet this case was a flashlight and a future successes sing that since the court recognized the one case, then it will accept other cases as well.
However, it is still not possible to answer the question whether Lebanon will eventually be recognized and free especially due to the the conservative religious groups that rejects the idea of homosexuality and refuse to accept any kind of relationship.
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