(Beirut, Lebanon) When Ahmad Mahfouz told hismother he is gay, she took him to a psychiatrist, thinking he had a disease thatcould be cured by antidepressants.

The 19-year-old college student, a LebaneseMuslim, is unusual in his candor and willingness to be named - though notphotographed. But more Arabs are coming out as gays, or at least coming to termswith their sexuality, even though in some countries they face laws that can landthem in jail, and people who beat them up because Islam condemns homosexuality.

Despite a vaguely worded law that punishes``unnatural sexual intercourse'' with up to one year in jail, Lebanon has ahistory of religious pluralism and exposure to the West. Elsewhere in the MiddleEast, gays are on their own.

Egyptian authorities use criminal articlesagainst debauchery and prostitution to prosecute gays. They have entrapped,arrested and tortured hundreds of men thought to be gay, says a report by NewYork-based Human Rights Watch, many of whom were ensnared by police throughInternet personals ads. At least 179 men have been prosecuted for debaucherysince the start of 2001.

French President Jacques Chirac has expressedconcern to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak about the treatment of gays, but theEgyptian Organization for Human Rights, the country's largest rights group, sayshomosexuality is so detested in Egypt that it cannot speak out againstprosecutions of gay men.

A recent Egyptian news report posted by Al-ArabiyaTV on its Web site described a Kuwaiti gay wedding party in Cairo and triggeredhundreds of blistering messages. Some of them said insurgents in Iraq should bekilling gays instead of innocent Iraqis. Whether the wedding took place is notclear.

On March 10, it said, authorities detained morethan 100 men at a party in the city of Jiddah, sentencing many of them in closedtrials without legal counsel to up to two years in prison and 2,000 lashes,usually meted out 50 at a time.

In the West Bank and Gaza Strip, some Palestiniangays have been forced to find sanctuary in Israel, where homosexuality istolerated _ a handful of Palestinians joined thousands of Israelis in June 2001in Israel's Gay Pride Day.

A slim man with dark hair, he says he is lookingfor a new place to live to escape his mother's wrath, her efforts to take awayhis cell phone, and her attempts to stop him from listening to music that shebelieves made him gay.

"Until I leave, I am trying to placate herby pretending to date. The woman is a lesbian friend but my mother doesn't knowit," he said with a smile.

Bilal Sharaf el-Din, a 21-year-old Lebanesestudying information technology, said he has told friends and sisters - but nothis mother - that he's gay. Shafar el-Din, a Muslim, said he knows homosexualityis a sin in Islam but that humans shouldn't be the judges.

There have been no recent prosecutions of gays inLebanon, but men have been beaten up for looking effeminate or fired for beinggay, said Georges Azzi, a Christian and a gay who is the only paid employee atHelem, the rights centre.

He said his group tries to raise awareness byspeaking at colleges. There are more gay-friendly bars, and in May theInternational Day Against Homophobia was observed for the first time in Lebanon.

He said demand for his dancing is strong, though"Sometimes, at nightclubs, people spit at me or throw drinking glasses. Idon't respond because I don't want to make an issue out of it."

Oddly enough, he says life in some ways is harderfor gays in Lebanon, because here boys and girls mix freely, so parents are morelikely to notice those who don't.

"It's easier in Saudi Arabia, where thesexes are segregated," said Teddy. "As long as boys and girls areseparate, parents feel their children are safe."

``I'd like to become the head of a union for theprotection of gays in Lebanon and the rest of the Arab world, and a very famouslawyer in the sphere of human rights,'' he said.

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