Posted on 02/12/2006 2:36:44 PM PST by Cornpone
Dubai - A United Arab Emirates court has jailed 12 men who were arrested after being discovered preparing for a gay wedding, but acquitted another 14 defendants, an official said on Sunday.
"Eleven men have confessed to practising homsexuality.
They were sentenced to five years in prison (for homosexuality) and one year for obscenity," said the official.
"Another man was sentenced to one year in prison for obscenity, but was acquitted of homosexuality charges... while 14 others have been released after being found not guilty," he said.
The 26 defendants, including UAE citizens, an Indian and three nationals of neighbouring Arab countries, were arrested in November when police raided a hotel in a desert resort town.
Emirates Today had reported that the Abu Dhabi court had sentenced all 26 men to five years in jail.
It said the men were busted in a hotel "dressed in women's clothes and makeup in preparation for a gay wedding".
The official said the verdict was not final and could go on appeal.
The United States state department had condemned the arrests and called on its close Gulf ally to stop reported plans for a forced hormone treatment on the suspects, which an interior ministry official then denied.
Homosexuality is a serious offence in the Muslim UAE and neighbouring conservative Gulf countries, where offenders could face flogging along with imprisonment, while foreigners could also face expulsion.
Last April, a court in neighbouring Saudi Arabia sentenced two Saudis, one Yemeni and a Jordanian to two years in jail and 2 000 lashes after a police raid on an alleged gay party.
Across the Gulf in non-Arab Iran, repeated sodomy carries the death penalty.
Wow @ this thread. Applauding the throwing of gays in jail together with forced chemical treatment. Shameful.
Wait... let me get this correct... you're accusing folks of being "authoritarian" for opposing foreign governments when they exercise absurd dictatorial powers?
Bubba, you're a rocket scientist? That's interesting. I am too. Where do you work? You seem to have one of the great minds of the 12th century.
Apparently that's 'conservative.'
Not a conservative view.
Not so long ago there was no AIDS, no homosexual instruction in school, no bathhouse orgy rooms, no obscene pride parades, no Brokeback Mountain.
All of those characteristics would still be desireable things today, and whatever it is we were doing then to discourage them must have worked pretty well.
And what we were doing is then is exactly what the UAE is doing now. Sodomy was a capital offense at the time of our founding and remained that way through most of the 19th century. As late as 1960 every state in the union had anti sodomy laws. The notion that homosexual conduct is anything other than an abomination to be discouraged with the full force of the law is a thoroughly modern development.
Conservatism is valuing the standards and institutions which have proven themselves in the past. This is a textbook example.
He was talking about centuries ago. I'm not sure "jobs" was an option for women back then, or men either for that matter. It was a tribal time. Humans are experienced based. Back then, no one had ever contemplated a world without chattel slavery, or women as chattels. It took the English Enlightenment to get the West out of that. Many societies today still labor under the old pre-enlightenment ways, India with its castes, Islam with all its foolishness and treatment of women, China with parents killing girl infants because boys are valued more. What is frustrating is that backward societies seem resistent to enlightened ideas. As if they don't want to improve, or what we see as improvement they do not.
"Bubba, you're a rocket scientist? That's interesting. I am too. Where do you work? You seem to have one of the great minds of the 12th century.
LOL!
I like your sense of humour!
Yes, but that's not because there weren't any homosexuals --- they just married women and pretended to be straight, while having sex with each other behind closed doors. You think that's preferable? I find it amusing that you think homosexuality will just go away if it's made a crime.
As late as 1960 every state in the union had anti sodomy laws.
As late as 1960, millions of American housewives watches Liberace each week on television. Those anti-sodomy laws worked really well....
There is a great deal of homosexual activity between males in Muslim countries. This has been documented by travelers such as Sir Richard Burton (not the actor) and others who have spent a good deal of time as observers in the Middle East. Burton may actually have had first-hand experience.
I am well aware of Burton and others who have reported on this quite common behavior in the Mooslem insane asylum. In many ways these creeps consider doing it with boys as cleaner than with women.
For hundreds of years the Mooslem Turks would forcefully gather up litle Christian boys and girls for the harems and barracks of the Ottomans...I cannot think of anything more evil than this practice.
Yep!
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