She used her access and contacts to dig up everything my application would need about the cultural practices and legal nuances of Jordan, to help prove my “well-founded fear.” She visited an organization for gay Muslims but left after unsuccessfully trying three doors, all heavily barred for security. It wasn’t enough to be scared for your life; you needed to prove that your life was worth saving. Luma does not talk about home very often. Repeatedly, she talks of her family and how important her family is to her. She loves her country and her family and the culture she was raised in. Luma is a lesbian, she knows nothing else and feels nothing else. I know that if Luma could change her sexuality and marry the man that her parents are expecting her to marry, she would. I know that if Luma thought in any way that she could live as a heterosexual, she would go home without question.
She loves her country, her country does not love her back. However, Luma’s most important role in my life has always been as my friend. Perhaps most frightening, I have watched helplessly while a caring and loving friend simply “shuts down,” dissociating to the point that she cannot remember simple conversations that took place days or hours earlier. Luma, as well as I, comes from a country that excuses murders of women as crimes of honor if they feel that the murder is justified. I sleep next to Luma, unable to hold her through her demons, but able to understand through her sleep talking that she is replaying, again and again, those events which are the reason she cannot in good conscience go back to Jordan. Luma comes from a very powerful and influential Jordanian family. Families such as the one Luma comes from are incredibly respected and feared and as a family only allow their members to marry into a family that is of equal status. Knowing this, I am convinced that Luma needs asylum in order to live the kind of life she deserves.
A letter I wrote to the San Francisco–based Arabic Society, one of the country’s only organizations for gay Arabs, was returned to me unopened. I searched the Associated Press for articles on the conditions of gays in Jordan, sure there would be some information in the millions of articles stored in the company’s archives. Luma is one of my closest friends, and knowing her has expanded my horizons in ways I’ve never even told her. Until I met Luma, I had few gay friends and was ambivalent about gay rights. Now, though, I bristle when I hear a term like “lifestyle choice.” With everything she has gone through and everything she has at stake, no one could believe Luma would choose to be gay. Returning Luma to Jordan is as good as a death sentence. Members of elite families virtually risk their lives if their sexual orientation becomes known because their parents place a higher priority on family honor than on individual freedoms even for their own children. Thus, if Luma were to return to Jordan, she would have to hide her sexuality or risk death and would undoubtedly be forced to marry. Because if I had the choice, I would choose not to dishonor my family.