Out of the closet, into the fire

But the biggest pressures appear to be familial. Due to economic and social constraints here, young people often live at home until well into their 30s, when they get married. Makarem said that means the private lives of young gays and lesbians are under the family microscope, which can result in violence that’s concealed behind closed doors.

“We do have some cases of people coming in who are victims of domestic violence from fathers and brothers,” Makarem said. “They are usually young, effeminate men.”

To help gays and lesbians who face violence at home, Markarem said Helem is developing a “trauma service” to field calls. It will be an addition to the group’s already substantial counseling services for people who are dealing with their own, or their children’s, sexuality.

Helem also offers a health clinic and HIV testing in association with Lebanon’s Ministry of Health, although the group’s legal status is in limbo. Helem has been unable to register as a civil society association with the Ministry of the Interior since the group was founded in 2004. 

“The ministry allows the organization to function, but they have not given the organization the certification of association,” he said. “It complicates financial issues … [and] forces an association to break other laws.”

Makarem says Lebanon’s former minister of the interior told the group he would like to approve the certification, but the issue would be political suicide, because he hailed from a conservative area.

In a response to discrimination and to protest the alleged beating of two gay men by the police, Helem held perhaps the only gay rights demonstration in the Arab world, ever, in downtown Beirut in February. More than two dozen men and women gathered to carry rainbow flags and signs that said “we shall no longer be afraid.”

Protesters called for the elimination of Lebanon’s Law 534, which criminalizes homosexuality. The law prohibits any "unnatural sexual intercourse."

But unlike the situation in other countries, such as Iraq, where Amnesty International reports that 25 boys and men have been killed because they were gay or believed to be gay, gays in Lebanon are largely left alone, at least by the legal system. Law 534 is seldom enforced, and Beirut has a healthy, public and very open gay and lesbian club and social scene. The police last raided one of the several gay nightclubs here in 2003.

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