The Paris Foot Gay team says Tuesday it received an e-mail from the Creteil Bebel club canceling a match scheduled for last Sunday.

“Because of the principles of our team, which is a team of devout Muslims, we can’t play against you,” the e-mail said, according to Paris Foot Gay. The e-mail received Saturday said, “Our convictions are much more important than a simple football match.”

Paris Foot Gay said in a statement that it asked the amateur league to sanction Creteil Bebel.

Zahir Belgarbi, identified as a spokesman for Creteil Bebel, told France-Info radio he apologized if “anyone felt upset or hurt.”

“Bruno” – following Baron Cohen’s hit “Borat” – is centered around the adventures of a flamboyant gay fashion journalist from Austria. An official from Malaysia’s Film Censorship Board said the movie was considered unacceptable because of its story line, offensive language, jokes and racy nature. She declined to be named, citing protocol.

“It’s banned because the story is based on gay life … There are a lot of sex scenes,” she said. “It’s contrary to our culture.”

Gay sex, or “carnal intercourse against the order of nature,” is punishable by up to 20 years in jail and whipping in Malaysia. Sex toys, politically incorrect comments and jokes about religion also irked the censors, she said.

She said censors vetted the movie last month, and the distributor was notified. Ukraine has also banned the film, and some Austrian officials have spoken out against it, but have not taken action. Baron Cohen’s previous movie “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan” made fun of the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan and the United States and was banned in Kazakhstan and Russia.

Malaysia also decided in early September to ban another American hit, the horror film “Halloween II,” because of its gory scenes and excessive violence, the official said. The distributor was informed and can appeal the decision.

A Muslim-majority nation of 28 million people, Malaysia has strict public morality rules, including those applying to entertainment. U.S. R&B star Beyonce Knowles, who is scheduled to perform here on Oct. 25, has promised to wear conservative attire for the show.

The killings come after Shiite cleric Sattar al-Battat repeatedly condemned homosexuality during recent Friday prayers, saying Islam prohibits homosexuality. Homosexual acts are punishable by up to seven years in prison in Iraq.

The two men were believed killed Thursday by relatives who were shamed by their behavior, said the official. Police said they suspected the killings were at the hands of family members because no one has claimed the bodies or called for an investigation.

The killings come weeks after Iraqi police found four bodies in late March buried near Sadr City with the words “pervert” and “puppies” written on their chests, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information.

Puppy is a derogatory word used by residents in Sadr City to refer to homosexuals, the official said.

Sadr City, a slum of about two million people, is home to a large majority of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia. Al-Sadr’s forces launched several uprisings against American forces since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, but fighting ended in Sadr City in May 2008.

“When the Mahdi army was in control, such practices were banned, and homosexuals were afraid of declaring their tendencies,” the official said. But that’s changed since the Mahdi Army militia cease fire took hold, the official said. The official said some people claim a coffee shop in Sadr City has become a hangout for gay men.

Sheik Ammar al-Saadi, a cleric at al-Sadr’s office, denied any involvement by the Mahdi army in the killings. He said the Mahdi Army was only urging people to stop practicing homosexuality.

“Such people have brought shame on Sadr city people,” he told The Associated Press. “The blame falls on the security forces who do little to combat this phenomenon or to stop the flow of pornography materials into Iraq.”

Also Saturday, a tourism and antiquities ministry official said Iraq plans to open a museum filled with belongings of ousted Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

Abdul-Zahra al-Talqani, the media director of Iraq’s office of tourism and archaeology affairs, told The AP that the items, which include art, furniture and weapons, were being handed back to the Iraqi government by the American military.

The U.S. military had been storing weapons belonging to the late Iraqi dictator in Taji, north of Baghdad.

Al-Talqani said no site for the museum has been selected, though it could be housed in one of Saddam’s palaces.

Some of the former dictator’s belonging are currently stored – but not on display – in Baghdad’s National Museum, which reopened in February after having been closed following looting in the aftermath of the 2003 invasion.

365gay talked to Sharma about the myth of the Muslim monolith, how hefound his “unlikely storytellers,” and the jihad – the struggle – to reconcile who you are with what you believe.

What compelled you to tell these stories?
I’m a gay Muslim myself – I think everything in my life moved me totell these stories.I was recently arrived in America in September 2001, when so much ofthe world changed forever, especially for Muslims. I remember inJanuary 2002 I was realizing very intensely that I needed to takeresponsibility for my own Islam. I knew that I needed to come out as a Muslim. And I also needed to come out as a gay man.

To be a Muslim first and gay second and lay claim to both, and to bring this discussion into the public arena, that was what we were seeking to do with this film.

What I find really interesting about you and about this film is that you seem to be struggling to find a path where you can be both a faithful Muslim and an out gay person. It seems to me that in the West that might be possible – do you think that’s possible in Islamic countries?
I think the history of Islam and homosexuality is a complex one. Islam has now been around for 1426 years. We often rush to pronounce all these general statements about Islam and how we should perceive it. One of the most problematic things is that in the West we consider Islam to be this violent monolith.

All I can say is that from my experience, filming in 12 countries, believing in Islam myself, Islam is very diverse, speaks in many different languages, and in many different profound ways.

You’ve talked elsewhere about how the West and Muslim countries see homosexuality very differently.
In the West, we traditionally apply those titles of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender very easily to sexual identity, and to almost construct political choices around these identities. In Muslim countries, those labels of affirmation aren’t applicable. The labels don’t apply very easily.

That touches on an op-ed you wrote in the Huffington Post about Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to Columbia University.
I think President Ahmadinejad is very easy to turn into a monster. It is extremely unfortunate how he was treated at Columbia. What people need to understand is the statements he made are open to interpretation. There is a huge debate over what he actually said.

Did he mean that homosexuality does not exist like it does in the West? If so, I agree with him. It’s not the same construct.

If he is denying the existence of homosexuals, then I take strong exception to that and invite him to see the film, because I filmed them.

Islam is more diverse on the subject of homosexuality than a lot of non-Muslims realize. Because homosexuality has existed for as long as Islam has existed, in many of these cultures it has often been tolerated, and has sometimes been celebrated.

If you look at the history, you see examples of homosexuality being celebrated in the arts, in poetry, through the courts of the Ottoman in Turkey, through the courts of the Mughal in India, though differentphases of the Persian empire as it developed.

A lot of the hatred, a lot of the homophobia that exists in the Muslimworld today is inherited from Colonialism. Many of the laws thatremain in countries like Egypt or India are laws that were enacted bythe British or the French. And those laws remain.

There’s also sharia.
Yes. In the 20th century, there was a revival of extremist Islam. But most gay people living in Muslim societies today are not living under sharia law. They are also not engaging in western constructs of homosexuality in the same language. Pretty much they are allowed to be, as long as they’re not flaunting their sexuality or owning it in apublic way, by let’s say organizing a gay pride parade in Tehran.

I found in the film that the majority of people who have same-sex tendencies assume that being married in a heterosexual marriage is perfectly normal and something they’re required to do by society and by religion and by culture.

So you’re saying that if someone marries a person of the opposite sex,then they can have a same-sex lover as long as they don’t call themselves gay? And they won’t have any trouble?
Absolutely. I can say this with confidence. I have filmed this for six years and grew up in India, I know that the majority of people who areattracted to the same sex within these societies are within marriages.

But then you have someone like Maryam in your film, who’s clearly avery devout Muslim. She tried to be married and now feels this great conflict between loving someone of the same sex and also being Muslim.
You’re absolutely right. In the film, Maryam is a woman in partnership with another woman. Both of them have been married before. And theydidn’t have the choice to exercise any aspect of their sexualitybecause in patriarchal societies, sexuality, whether heterosexual or homosexual, is denied.

They’re in a completely patriarchal Arab society where coming outwould involve tremendous risks not just to themselves but also their families, so they chose to stay invisible. The conflict is profound.

They have not been able to negotiate a relationship with Islam that they are comfortable with. Maryam says in the film, “Sometimes I want to be punished.” Because maybe that is what will make me feel that Iat least tried to be good. Because what I am is clearly not good in the Islamic way.

That’s what I set out to document. How do you find a space withinyourself that allows you to be as devout to God as to your ownsexuality? And how can you find a place of equal comfort within yourself for these seemingly disparate things, love for God and love for someone of same sex?

Do you see this as being problematic? What is a solution for people like Maryam? What I think you are saying is that men can get marriedand have lovers on the side, so for them maybe it’s OK not to have thesocial construct of being gay. But maybe that doesn’t work for women in love with other women.
I don’t claim to offer any easy solutions. I don’t feel Islam, diverse as it is and representing such a huge swath of humanity as it does -more than a billion people – is going to have a blanket condoning of homosexuality in my lifetime.

What a film like this does is enables this unrepresented group of people, these most unlikely storytellers of Islam, to come out andstart a discussion, to start a learning process within their own communities – so that there can be benefits in the longer run for many that will follow.

These are amazing stories you’re telling. How did you wind up connecting with your subjects?
Finding people was a jihad, a struggle. Underground networks exist in most of the countries I went to – people know how to connect with each other, to their groups. So emails were sent out, phone calls were made.

Many times I would just end up in a particular country with a tourist visa and just camp there for the longest time just meeting people and take repeated trips to film with them.

One of the biggest challenges for me was to gain the trust of the subjects. I had to go with my extremely intrusive camera, entering personal aspects of their lives and expecting them to share this with me.

I first met Maryam when I started making this film in 2002. Only last year, 2006, did she finally agree to be filmed after many years of gaining her trust.

What helped tremendously was the commonality of our experience. That the Muslim camera was being wielded by a Muslim who knew what they had been though, who understood, who knew the culture. It is a film that was not mediated by Western eyes.

What’s next for you?
The end of making a film is just a beginning of the movement. When you spend six years of your life on something, you cannot just deliver the child and expect it to grow up.

To actually create change with the film, I am launching The Muslim Dialogue Project, which will tap into networks of people hungry for this film, and use it as a tool of education. There will also be a meeting at a secret location next year on homosexuality and prejudice in Muslim communities, with religious leaders, psychologists, doctors, queer people, to come up with skills and solutions to take back into their own communities. That’s the goal.

And religious leaders are open to this?
You’d be surprised. There is a vast number of Muslim religious leaders who understand the importance of this film and are keen to engage init, but have not been able to openly support it.

But the discussion has begun now and it’s not going to stop andeventually there will be people who can embrace the film publicly. The floodgates have opened.

Jihad for Love is showing at film festivals around the country. For more information, click here.