When the Christian extremists of Soldiers of God menaced a bar in Beirut’s nightlife district during a drag show, their members had a chilling message for patrons: “We have warned you a hundred times … this is just the beginning.”
The group, whose members sometimes carry weapons, have repeatedly threatened places associated with Lebanon’s LGBTQ+ community, accusing them of “promoting homosexuality” amid an increase in homophobic rhetoric from the country’s politicians.
Lebanon has long been considered a bastion of relative tolerance compared with other countries in the Middle East, with gay-friendly clubs, bars and civil society organisations existing in pockets of the capital.
Spaces of relative safety flourished despite growing pressure from conservative elements across Lebanese society. However, LGBTQ+ people say they have noticed a shift from an uneasy tolerance to being scapegoated for the country’s problems.
Instead of fixing the cratered economy or demanding justice in the aftermath of a deadly blast in Beirut’s port, some of Lebanon’s more conservative figures have instead taken aim at LGBTQ+ people.
The activist Tarek Zeidan scoffed when asked how he felt about politicians’ newfound zeal for targeting his community. “Who destroyed the Lebanese family – was it us? Or was it the economic policies that cause the complete dissolution of the Lebanese family, many now forced to leave the country to work elsewhere.
“Who has destroyed the fabric of society? Us, who have been part of society since its inception, or them?”
Zeidan, the executive director of the LGBTQ+ rights group Helem, added: “This is the manufacturing of a moral panic in order to justify a crackdown, and to deviate public attention away from their unpopular policies.”
The leader of the powerful Hezbollah movement, Hassan Nasrallah, has used several recent speeches to criticise the LGBTQ+ community, stating that gay people should be killed, accusing civil society groups of promoting homosexuality and describing the community as an “imminent threat to society”.
In the aftermath, Human Rights Watch reported a rise in the number of online threats, prompting the dating app Grindr to take immediate action to protect users.
Lebanon’s acting culture minister, Mohammad Mortada, meanwhile led a charge against the release of the summer blockbuster movie Barbie, which has grossed $1bn worldwide and delighted audiences in other parts of the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia.
He said the film should be banned for “promoting homosexuality and sexual transformation” as well as “contradicting religious values and morality”. Barbie is due to be released in Lebanon on Thursday.
The veteran activist Georges Azzi, who co-founded Helem as well as the Arab Foundation for Freedoms and Equality and lives in exile after harassment over his advocacy, called Nasrallah’s statements a way for the group “to stage an attack on our society, and to create a war they can win”.
He sees Nasrallah’s comments as a way to distract the public, notably from the anniversary of a catastrophic blast in Beirut’s port three years ago that killed more than 220 people, injured thousands and destroyed swaths of the capital. “Any subject that can distract people from this, they’ll take it,” he said.
Nasrallah has repeatedly criticised gay people along with opponents of child marriage in past years, claiming homosexuals are “destroying societies” and groups working to combat early marriage are “unknowingly serving the devil”.
His recent comments have prompted a fresh wave of efforts by religious conservatives from multiple faiths, all claiming to defend traditional family values.
A thinktank linked to Hezbollah published a draft law that would prohibit mentioning homosexuality in all institutions including the media as well as demanding prison sentences for same-sex relations, while a Sunni MP from the northern city of Tripoli said he was preparing his own bill to criminalise homosexuality.
The Maronite Christian patriarch recently oversaw a ministerial gathering attended by the caretaker prime minister Najib Mikati, focusing on the threats to the traditional family and warning against a “narrative cloaked in modernity, liberty and human rights rhetoric, which contradicts religious and ethical principles”.
Mortada – who tried to ban Barbie – has taken to social media to repeated proclaim his opposition to what he termed “promoting” homosexuality and sparred with a small group of progressive MPs who proposed repealing a vague clause in the Lebanese penal code used to criminalise homosexuality, punishable with up to a year in prison.
Activists and rights groups point to what they say instead are the real problems the country is facing. Since 2019, most Lebanese citizens have been locked out of their savings amid a paralysing banking and financial crisis. Political gridlock and widespread dissatisfaction with parliamentarians reign, while the country has been without a president for almost a year.
“Lebanon is drowning,” said Ramzi Kaiss of Human Rights Watch. “Throughout this year, the government and Lebanese authorities have distracted from their responsibility to handle this crisis and the need to implement badly needed reforms, both in the judiciary and the economy, by using a scapegoat. In the spring this was refugees and now it’s against LGBTQ+ people.”
He added: “This is in the context of a crumbling state, a massive economic crisis, crises in education and healthcare and the prison system. But none of this is a problem for the government, instead we have politicians and public officials using scapegoats as a way of diverting from the real problems.”
Zeidan drew a parallel between the escalation of homophobia in Lebanon and tactics used by governments across the Middle East. An Iraqi MP recently proposed a bill that could cause those convicted for same-gender relations to receive the death penalty, and imprison anyone accused of “imitating women” for up to three years.
“It can be easy political dividends to manufacture these kinds of moral panics,” he said. “It gets eyes off the problems with electricity, with water, the devaluation of the lira and the crisis that Lebanon is to talk about an unseen intangible threat of deviants and homosexuality that are coming for your children.”
