This week’s The Economist has an article about Islam and homosexuality in it. It’s something I’m pretty interested in, least of which because I just returned from a holiday in Jordan (where I found this awesome, gay-friendly bar). There’s a really interesting chart in the article about male homosexuality, where it’s legal (only Turkey and Jordan, and not specifically illegal in Egypt and Iraq). And yet in all the countries, gays are still prosecuted by other means. In at least three Islamic countries homosexuality is actually punishable by death. Death.

Check out the article online here: Islam and homosexuality: Straight but narrow. It’s an interesting read and nice to see how the internet is continuing to change things…often for the better. And yet, even where it may seem relatively safe to be gay, things like this still happen:

Where laws are gentler, authorities find other ways to crack down. In the Jordanian capital, Amman, several gay hangouts have been raided or closed on bogus charges, such as serving alcohol illegally. Even where homosexuality is legal (as in Turkey), official censure can be fierce. A former minister for women’s affairs, Aliye Kavaf, called it “a disease”; the interior minister, Idris Naim Sahin, cited it (along with Zoroastrianism and eating pork) as an example of “dishonour, immorality and inhuman situations”.

Read the article here: http://www.economist.com/node/21546002