It's incredible that today, in the 21st century, gay folk can cause such a stir. Take, for example, a case that unfolded this week in Egypt: a newspaper was banned after claiming that famous movie stars were gay. That's fair...

The paper, Al Balagh Al Gadid, claimed last week that three popular movie stars — Nour El Sherif, Khaled Aboul Naga and Hamdi El Wazir — had been caught in a hotel's prostitution ring. Then, in an alleged effort to clear their names, bribed police officers to keep their names out of the papers. Guess that plot didn't work. Nor did the paper's fact checkers, because police sources say the shakedown never went down. Details are little devils, huh?

The actors were definitely not amused by the paper's report, but not because of the prostitution ring thing, but because — shocker — they were described as card-carrying queers. Remarked El Sherif:

Naming me among other homosexuals defamed me and all Egyptian artists. The Journalists' Syndicate has to be firm with anyone trying to insult the dignity of Egyptian artists.

Now the Egyptian Higher Council for Journalism has banned the paper all together. If only all of life's problems were so easy to solve, like homophobia and the destruction of free press, no matter how erroneous.

Image via permanently scatterbrained's flickr.