But now, a year down the road and thousands of hate mails later, I've come to some conclusions about what all this hatred and homophobia says about those who are afflicted with it. Such as:

• The most homophobic person just might be homosexual. Having internalised all of society's and Islam's condemnation of homosexuality, some homosexuals join the fray and actively persecute those of us who are open and honest about our homosexuality. Why do they do this? Jealousy, perhaps. Or self-hatred. I get the feeling that the vicious messages from these people are actually desperate pleas for help. I have to wonder, after all, why the issue of homosexuality stirs up such anger and emotion within them -- indeed, why else, if not because they are passionately involved in the issue in their own lives? And why is that some are so demanding that I prove to them that homosexuality is okay unless they  desperately want it to be okay for their own personal reasons?
• Homophobic people have no lives of their own. I can't imagine why anyone not interested in the issue of homosexuality would bother visiting my Web page and then taking the time to write a long hateful diatribe unless they simply have nothing better to do. But again, I also have to wonder why they would visit the page in the first place unless they were, for some reason, interested in homosexuality.
• Homophobic people are unhappy. Anyone who devotes a significant part of their lives to actively hating other groups of people is obviously unhappy about something or other, and they are taking their unhappiness out on other people.
• Homophobic people are afraid. Fear comes from uncertainty; we are afraid of the dark because we don't know what secrets the dark might be hiding. Many homophobic people are afraid of homosexuals, afraid of how it challenges their beliefs and culture, afraid of what it would mean if Allah actually did create homosexuals. Those who are afraid of homosexuals have often never met a homosexual and thus do not realise how ridiculous their fear is.
• Homophobic people are insecure. I have found, time and again, that the most homophobic people are the ones who are emotionally and psychologically insecure, afraid of thinking new thoughts or exploring new ideas, rigid and judgemental, the sort of people who believe love has to be earned and that love can be regulated and turned on and off like a water faucet. Such people, I suspect,  come from unhappy backgrounds, born of parents who did not love them properly and unconditionally. They grew up believing that to be loved meant one had to follow a certain set of rules, had to please, had to be accomodating. Such people live in the fear that love can be withdrawn at any time.
• Homophobic people need a scape goat for their problems. People who are suffering very often look around for someone to blame their troubles on -- any minority will do, especially faggots. No matter how absurd the reasoning or stretch of logic involved, such people will be able to convince themselves that homosexuals are somehow the cause of their problems.
• Homophobic people are uneducated. The phrase "bigoted country bumpkin" is not without merit. Most homophobic people know nothing about homosexuality, have never met a homosexual, have never considered all the pros and cons of the debate on homosexuality, have no clue on the medical and scientific evidence that has been presented in recent years on homosexuality -- they are, in short, ignorant.Most religious bigots don't even know their own scriptures properly, and very often quote those scriptures completely out of context, have never heard of textual analysis, and are certainly unable to read the original languages the scriptures were written in, much less comprehend the social and cultural context in which they occurred.

It is most interesting to note that of the thousands of messages I have received, very few -- less than 3, in fact -- were actually sincere attempts by concerned Muslims to engage in an honest debate on the issue of homosexuality. Most messages conveyed the idea that I was such a worthless pervert that any attempt at discussing the issue was a waste of time.

The second most common type of message came from the "catechism cads" who repeated, as if by rote, what they had heard by someone or other about homosexuality and had assumed -- and were demanding that I believe -- that it was completely and totally true, that it was somehow so completely self-evident that only the most perverse soul could dispute it. A typical message along these lines: "Allah destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah so homosexuality must be wrong." No attempt is made to understand the story or to come to a conclusion as to what the "sin" of the people of Sodom and Gomorrah actually was; no attempt to answer why the details of the story change from one telling to the next in the Qur'an; no attempt to respond to the argument that while the homosexuals of those two cities may have indeed "exceeded the bounds" that did not necessarily mean all homosexuals everywhere did; and no attempt to distinguish between homosexual activity and the homosexual himself.

Another major type of message has been the "homosexuality is a test" line of thinking which purports to say homosexuals have been singled out by Allah to be "tested" -- to see whether they will remain true to Islam, or give in to their vile lusts. If this is so, then why do Muslims continue to foster hatred and discrimination for the ones being singled out for this "test"? And does Allah play these types of games with the creates He creates?

Homophobia says a great deal about the homophobic person, and not necessarily very much about the homosexual. Those spewing their vile hate should pause to think about it first.

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