Gays in mosques?

[Re: “Mosques open doors,” Samer Elatrash, Sept. 20] With regard to your open house invitation to a mosque; we are a gay couple that has been in a relationship for 10 years. We believe that monogamy is a prerequisite to fidelity, so we practise the first and possess the second. We are highly devout, practising Pagans that have a profound relationship with Divinity.

We do not engage in anal sex. My knowledge of Islam is very limited, but as I understand it, we have not committed a sin in the eyes of Allah; although we are two men who are deeply in love. Would we be welcome in your house of worship?

>> Brian and Gregg

Protest Lebanon

[Re: “Massacre memorial,” Christopher Hazou, Sept. 20] Christopher Hazou kindly informed Mirror readers that there would be a 25th anniversary memorial protest about the massacre of residents of the Sabra and Shatila Palestinian camps in Lebanon by the Christian Phalangist militia. He erred in saying the Israeli army surrounded the camps and sent the Phalangists in, they just didn’t protect them and they were the occupying power. Definitely a shameful episode and worthy of commemoration. The protest would not, as you might expect, be in front of the Israeli consulate, but rather in front of an Indigo bookstore, because the owner, Heather Reisman, democratically supports Israel and its army against its enemies.

I assume that afterwards, these thoughtful protesters will head to the Lebanese consulate to protest the later and greater massacres in the same camps by the Druze militia after the Israelis had left. Their leader of the day, Walid Jumblatt, is today a member of the Lebanese parliament. They can also protest the recent killings of those nice jihadists in other camps by the Lebanese army. Nice touch too that the protest was scheduled for Sept. 22, which happened to be Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar. The protesters could also celebrate the start of the Yom Kippur War on Israel by Egypt and Syria in 1973.

Finally, I hope Mr. Hazou lets us know when this group will be heading to the Sudanese embassy (or bookstore) to protest the killings of hundreds of thousands of non-Arab Sudanese by their government and agents in the south and Darfur. I plan to join in!

>>Ken Frankel

Dual homeland

[Re: “Peace for Israel?” Letters, Sept. 20] Regarding the ongoing debate over Israel/Palestine: what is increasingly rarely referred to by anti-Zionist factions is the fact that while the territory is the homeland of the Palestinian people currently living under occupation, it is also the homeland of the Jewish people. Until Arab societies recognize the fact that the territory called by the Jewish people “Israel” is the historical, cultural, genealogical homeland of all Jewish people—and that the homeland of all Jewish people can be nowhere else on Earth—then we will be locked in a state of war.

The way Jewish settlers pushed Palestinian people out of their homes in the 1940’s was wrong. What they should have done was pitch tents or create other means of temporary shelter alongside existing Arab-owned homes. It is my personal belief that those involved were in the throes of a certain kind of madness, a desperation for security and shelter brought about by events in Europe. This by no means excuses what they did, but as the dialogue continues, we should keep it in mind.

>> Rebecca Rustin

Green days

[Re: “Leaving your ride behind,” Patrick Lejtenyi, Sept. 20] “The Front” for Sept. 20 sounded some alarms for our environment. With articles about “Car-Free Day,” “Festival écolo de Montréal” and warnings about destruction and logging in Canada, your past copy must be termed “the Mirror’s Green Issue.”

We are faced with a monumental issue: Our wants vis-à-vis our needs. We are all creatures of an easy, fast mobility and of habit. We love the taste of shark-fin soup and we ain’t gonna wait for a damn bus to transport us to that fine restaurant! Twice a year for a birthday or anniversary is understandable but employing a two-ton vehicle to continuously transport a single person is lunacy. By far the most crucial of the alarms stressed in your Green issue is, despite its minimal effects, “Car-Free Day.”

While we await the next Montreal International Auto Show—each one bigger and better than the one before—every time we choose to “ease traffic flow through that bottleneck,” improve the road by widening or add another parking facility, we nurture the thrust to satisfy our wants and not our needs. Certainly an increase in fuel tax is needed to pay the true social costs of car movement and storage.

Quality of life is never diminished by attempting to live in sympathy with the environment—rather than bulldozing through it. This sympathy may result in a small reduction in dollar assets—perhaps. After all, auto-petroleum-highway concerns have directly or indirectly resulted in greater commerce and hence, greater income.

But the quality of life is far more important.

>> Edward Abramic

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