Michel is also gay. Stories like Tareq’s and Samira’s are why he also believes he can only live his life outside Lebanon. Last year, he found a job in California and for the first time, he lives his life without the constant fear of being found out and the constant worry that his family’s reputation would be destroyed. Michel has decided to try to stay in America. Unwilling to enter into a Green Card marriage, he has opted for a bolder strategy to secure residency. Earlier this year, he began an application for asylum on the grounds that as a gay man, he cannot live freely in his home country
Poor guy. Just a masterpiece of bad timing, isn't it? What chance is there that, in the current climate, the US will extend asylum to any Arab? (Afghan women are about the only group for whom I'd think an exception might be made, and most of them have absolutely no way to get here to make the application in the first place.)
Copyright © 2001, Iain Jackson, after-words.org
[Archives: 2001 and after]
Archives before February 5, 2001
Search entries:
12/19/2001: vive la france
12/19/2001: princess, redux
12/19/2001: yemen and rumsfeld
12/18/2001: you're NOT in the army now
12/18/2001: interesting donation
12/18/2001: shame on winn dixie, indeed
12/18/2001: saudi princess
12/17/2001: new resolve
12/17/2001: a victim of the attack ... yeah, right
12/17/2001: polluters ho!