“You don’t have to be gay to defend gay rights,” insist a number of popular Lebanese public figures in an advocacy video released by civil society organization Proud Lebanon in the leadup to the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia on May 17.

“Even if we’re different, we shouldn’t disagree,” asserted celebrities such as TV host Fouad Yammine, urging fellow citizens to challenge problematic laws that allow for the persecution of members of the LGBT community in Lebanon.

While Lebanese law does not explicitly criminalize homosexuality, Article 534 of the penal code, which prohibits “sexual intercourse contrary to the order of nature,” is often used to prosecute LGBT people, even though "nature" has not been legally defined in Lebanon. 

Yammine called campaigns like Proud Lebanon important, but lamented their negligible impact. Lebanon, he told Al-Monitor, is burdened by a culture of “tamyeez” (Arabic for othering). “I would say 99% of society is anti-LGBT rights. It is a society full of stereotypes. If Muslims and Christians are still afraid of each other, of course we have homophobia.”