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A 40-year retrospective of gay photographer DUANE MICHALS’ work is one of the special features of this year's Equality Forum in Philadelphia. (Photos copyright Duane Michals, courtesy Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York)
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HOME > ENTERTAINMENT > FEATURE
By: KATHERINE VOLIN COMMENTS
 
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giving his message is particularly important because of the rarity of a gay Iranian perspective.
“I’m so happy and I’m honored that I can talk on behalf of my LGBT Iranian friends, [because] they cannot speak out,” Parsi says.
Parsi’s panel is moderated by Michael Luongo, an international journalist and the editor of “Gay Travels in the Muslim World”, a collection of essays.
“It’s really kind of bringing a depth to the discussion beyond headlines,” Luongo says about the panel discussion, which is free, as are most Equality Forum events. The conference has no registration fee and last year drew 75,000 participants.
“If we’re going to talk about war, if we’re going to talk about the Middle East, one of the notions that gets lost in most of the media coverage is the people that are living there,” he says.
Subtlety is also lost in the western world’s image of Islamic sexuality, according to Luongo.
“Everything is very nuanced,” he says about gay life in the Muslim world. “It’s not just headlines and people being decapitated. There’s so many different ways in which sexuality is expressed and in the Middle East, it’s far more nebulous and far more fluid than anything that we’re used to.”
Luongo says one of his main messages to audiences is the importance of visiting countries, even if they seem unsafe.
(Photos copyright Duane Michals, courtesy Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York) |
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“You really need to see places directly for yourself if possible and push your own envelope to go to see quote-unquote dangerous places,” he says. “That’s something that I really encourage people to do — to really go beyond their own fears and see places for what they are. And the process of traveling changes both you and the places that you visit.”
THE DECISION TO focus on gay life in the Muslim world was made last July, says Equality Forum’s Lazin. Two months later, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came to the U.S. and made memorable comments about queer life in Iran while speaking at Columbia University.
“In Iran, we don’t have homosexuals, like in your country,” Ahmadinejad said to laughter and boos from the audience.
“President Ahmadinejad certainly assisted in bringing focus to that issue when he declared at Columbia University that there were no gays in his country,” Lazin says
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