To Mingle or Not to Mingle

Human beings cannot live without interacting with one another; they are very social and dependent on each other in several things. And so in order to interact with the other person you need to build some sort of a relationship or a connection which keep you and this person connected to your needs and her/his needs. But all this connection should be mutual from the two sides; otherwise it will not give any fruits in the end of the day.

The question is: How can gay people in Lebanon mingle in side of the community, and how can they become a part from this community just like anyone else? How can they interact with the straight people and have this mutual will to connect and help each other in order to survive? Or should the gay people only mingle with gay people and exclude themselves from the whole community? And wouldn't that be a very wrong step towards increasing the misunderstanding and the gaps between the straight people and the gay concept?

To mingle inside the community is to be "one" with the community while maintaining your own views and personality, but being accepted as an entity no matter what your views, color, sexuality, and religion are... To mingle inside the community is to wear the "clothes of that community"...But not exactly. You only wear these clothes, if they fit your body, if they don't then you either edit them, or change them, because at the end of the day, if you do not like the green color, you won't ever feel comfortable wearing the green color, so you change it to the red color.

To mingle... Is to become accepted. But the fundamentally judgmental Lebanese community will not allow any homosexual to mingle among it. Why? Because we go back to the first article I've written, religion, parental and environmental social background, and I must add one more thing: Because the Lebanese community is afraid of change, and of losing the religious, sectarian political system they have if we ever progress. So it is all connected and it is all in the hands of the rulers of the country.

To mingle is to forgo your sexuality in front of the straight people. Because nobody wants to be mocked, or made fun of, or even beaten by straight guys. To mingle is to have tow lives, a life that you fake, and a secret life that you are not proud of it just because people made you feel ashamed of it. To mingle in Lebanon is to wear the green color that you hate in order to just be loved and accepted by the people who curse your secret life.

Not to mingle...Not to mingle... Gays will separate themselves from the straight community, they will not care if they are accepted or not, loved or not, respected or not, but they will stick together as one herd and will fight for their rights as one hand so that they force the community to accept them and respect them.
They will organize demonstrations against the government in order to ask for legal acceptance (Article 534 of the Lebanese Penal Code where everyone should sign to abolish: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/abolish-article-534-of-the-lebanese-penal-code), they will walk in the streets of the country to show the people that they are humans and deserve to live, they will be on talk shows and television programs to enlighten the people of this country that all what religions have said, and parents have created is just a lie and a fallacy.

Not to mingle is to stand and sacrifice for a cause of existence. Not to mingle is to stand high and be proud of who you are, who you have been and who you will always be: Lebanese & Gay.
I know that all this is just hard for us to do, and I know that if we move towards this step lots of us are going to lose their jobs and be humiliated in their neighborhoods, but what if we didn't do such a step and they found out about you? You will always be humiliated and maybe abused...
Is it not worth it to suffer for a year or two or maybe five years and then have a government that protects you and society that understands you?

Yes, I do also understand that the gay lifestyle in Lebanon is beautiful, we have our pubs, our nightclubs, our restaurants and even our hangout places, but all this is still not enough for us to mingle with the rest of the community.


In the end of the day the choice is always ours, we either fight the unfairness and the disgrace we live in, or we let it go and live under the 534 Article of the Lebanese Penal Code, which can be applied anytime and we all be taken to prison just because we are homosexuals.