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The growing controversy over Israel’s Eurovision song entry
(www.semafor.com)
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this post was submitted on 27 Feb 2024
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So based on your comment, Arab and north African nations didn't refuse participating because it's gay. It's because the organization harborsca genocidal entity (Israel).
Yeah I don't see the issue and I'm an Arab myself. There's homophobia in our land, but I'm not sure why you people act like we're the only exceptionally homophobic place on earth. I sense its a projection of how your nations handled homophobia at its peak. Arab nations are unlikely to have a song like this of their own, but they won't boycott the competition for it.
Wrong and you have nothing to prove this :)
Wrong. There's probably like one or two countries that do this (depending on how far east you are including). Saudi Arabia is the notable one (the state created by Britain), and Iran if you go that far east.
Not Arab or north African.
Do you think that Hungary and Turkey are more conservative than your average arab nation? If lgbtq is an issue for these countries, dont you think it is safe to assume that this will be an issue for most arab countries?
Given that Hungary literally bs outwardly said "we don't like euro vision because it's too gay" and Arabs said "because it harbors a genocidal state", then the evidence is clear. You people have this notion that only Arabs are exceptionally homophobic. What more does Hungary have to do for you to stop Arab exceptionalism?
Just the first google results i got
https://www.equaldex.com/surveys/acceptance-of-homosexuality-arab-barometer
According to this poll, only 5-26%(varies a lot by country) of people living in arab states think that homosexuality is an acceptable practice(the rest is no/unsure/did not answer, which might be unfair to lump them all together but still)
And according to this
https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2020/06/25/global-divide-on-homosexuality-persists/
49% of hungarians accept homosexuality
Are you saying that these polls are misleading and that most people in arab countries support lgbtq people/relations/rights? Do you have any polls that support your position?
These polls are misleading because they ignore many factors. Yes, it's true middle easterners are less likely to proclaim support for LGBT (and that's what the link you provided prices). In Europe (and particularly Eastern Europe), there's the issue of rampant hate violence against LGBT, often even by their own family. This is pretty rare in the middle east. I would consider this a more important issue than that poll reveals.
This isn't to say the middle east is an LGBT paradise in any sense at all. I still acknowledge it is a homophobic place. Those who are publicly LGBT will unfortunately face rejection and ostracision by society, and most LGBT only keep it secret except to trusted friends and family. Moreover, some middle Eastern governments go after LGBT activists and influencers. I think this doesn't happen much in Eastern Europe anymore (I didn't check every country so I may have missed some).
In the end, it's not all black and white. Two homophobic nations may still handle and express their homophobia differently, and homophobia may not always be the issue on top of mind. The LGBT cause is not something that's top of mind in the middle east like it is in the west, and in the times where it does come up, it is often about a stupid conspiracy theory of the west trying to force LGBT on them, rather than something internal.