While the U.S. fights terrorism, some of the Middle Eastern countries it has wooed into alliance treat gays and lesbians as criminals, punishable in many instances by a brutal death.In Saudi Arabia, people charged with sodomy are routinely executed by beheading. Laws in Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen also call for the death penalty. In Iran men convicted of sodomy have been executed by stoning. Women convicted of “lesbianism” under Iranian law are subjected to lashings and face an automatic death sentence if convicted for a fourth offense. Egyptian police recently arrested more than 50 men at a nightclub raid, accusing them of “debauchery with men.”

Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iran, and other Middle Eastern Muslim countries, have all strengthened their alliances with the U.S. since the “war on terrorism” began.

When Madeleine Albright spoke here about the global need for human rights, she did not address persecution of homosexuals in the Middle East. When asked, her politicized answer was a ‘quid pro quo’ – aid to our new allies in return for their help fighting terrorism – and possibly in return for beginning the process of establishing tolerance for homosexuals, people presently considered offensive enough to merit execution.

This work isn’t easy. Anti-gay persecution in various degrees of severity takes place in virtually all of the world’s Islamic nations, including those in the Middle East, Africa and Asia. But no more perfect opportunity could present itself for us to initiate a process that will take at least a hundred years: equality regardless of sexual orientation.

Now, the U.S. cannot claim complete moral superiority when it continually refuses to pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, won’t recognize relationships of its gay and lesbian citizens, and won’t let them serve openly in its armed forces.

The man who used all his influence to prevent the inclusion of openly gay people in the U.S. military, Colin Powell, now serves as Albright’s successor, and is now in the most powerful position to demand better treatment of gay and lesbian Muslims in the Middle East.

This obviously will not be the first thing Powell brings to the table. But with enough vocal insistence on human rights, steps can be taken. I urge you to keep this persecution in mind, and to write Powell, your president, senators, and representative, to remind them of this as the war on terrorism, supposedly a war against injustice, progresses.