> I’m from a Muslim country that does not accept western notions of individualism or sexual permissiveness. There is no such Western notion of individualism or

> I’m from a Muslim country that does not accept western notions of individualism or sexual permissiveness. There is no such Western notion of individualism or sexual permissiveness. The sexual mores of Roman Catholics in South America are very different than the sexual mores of Roman Catholics in Italy and very different from some polygamous Mormon enclaves in the US. The "West" once uniformly banned homosexuality and has been very inconsistent in slowly coming to tolerate it, and such tolerance has certainly also grown in the "East" in a similar slow and inconsistent fashion. What there is, in many countries, is a notion of the necessity of secularism in law and government. Brought about precisely because religions cannot agree about basic fundamental points of morality and they have been all too willing to fight each other over it throughout history. In order for the various religious sects to stop fighting one another, it was agreed in many nations that the law shouldn't play favorites with a given religions view of morality. This separation of church and state is indeed found far and wide and certainly goes beyond the "West". The underlying principle, that you cannot get people even in a single nation to agree upon what otherwise harmless things are taboo, ultimately leads to other protections for self expression and in this case homosexuality.