I am not anti-religion. Truly, Iam not. However, it incresingly seems to me that one of the worse human created problems currently plaguing the world is religious fundamentalism in all its various forms and denominations. Rather than live their lives according to their insane/delusional beliefs and leave everyone else alone, it is always the fundamentalist who consistently try to compel all others to live according to their whacked out beliefs. The situation is the same whether or not the fundamentalists are allegedly Christian, Muslim or other religions. And sadly, gays always seem to be among their preferred targets of these - in my view - hate filled and intolerant groups. A case in point is the arrest of gays in Egypt who most likely want to live and let live. I can only shudder at how the wingnuts determined those arretsed were gays. Here are highlights from Yahoo News Canada (http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/egypt_rights_trial_gay):
CAIRO (AFP) - A Cairo court on Wednesday jailed five men, four of them HIV positive, for three years on charges of "debauchery" linked to homosexuality, the latest example of what rights groups call a "witch hunt."
The men were arrested three weeks ago in a central Cairo restaurant following an argument after which a client accused them of practising homosexuality, in what rights groups say is becoming a familiar pattern of persecution. A police doctor carried out anal inspections on the men "which confirmed their homosexuality," the court official said. Human Rights Watch said such examinations constitute torture and are medically spurious.
Besides facing widespread public prejudice, Egyptian homosexuals have in the past been jailed on charges ranging from "scorning religion" to "sexual practices contrary to Islam." Hafez Abu Saada, of the Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights, said the men were prosecuted under 1961 anti-prostitution laws which "must be changed ... as it's against the international convention of human rights which Egypt signed in 1986. "This law is also against the Egyptian constitution which guarantees the right to privacy and individual freedom," he said.
A collective of over 117 health and human rights organisations on Monday sent a letter to the health ministry and the Egyptian Doctors' Syndicate saying doctors interrogating HIV-positive men were violating their own ethics. "Doctors must put patients first, not join a witch-hunt driven by prejudice," Human Rights Watch's Joe Amon said on Monday.
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