First gay 'marriage' in Pakistan
A gay couple have become the first to get
"married" in Pakistan, according to reports from the region.
A gay couple have become the first to get "married" in Pakistan, according to reports from the region.
Witnesses said a 42-year-old Afghan refugee held a marriage ceremony with a local tribesman of 16 in the remote Khyber region bordering Afghanistan.
Gay marriage is not legal in conservative Muslim Pakistan.
On hearing of the wedding, a tribal council told the pair to leave the area or be killed for breaking religious and tribal "values and ethics".
Yeah, let’s hear it for “values and ethics”.
"The marriage was held amid usual pomp and show associated with a tribal wedding," it said.
Malik Waris Khan, a prominent local politician and former federal minister, confirmed to AFP that the marriage had taken place.
"I checked the report with people in Tirah Valley and they confirmed it," he said.
Although it remains a taboo subject, homosexuality is relatively common in Pakistan, says the BBC's correspondent Aamer Ahmed Khan in Islamabad.
Increasingly, gay couples are living together in some of the big cities such as Karachi and Islamabad, but gay marriages remain unheard of, he says.
I guess folks need reminding, here, that what's accepted as a fight for civil rights -- is a life and death matter in nations where fundamentalist superstition is accepted as law.
Posted: Wed - October 5, 2005 at 03:42 PM