A Not-So-Gay Holiday

R oughly 2,000 gay men and Broadway star Patti LuPone were adrift in the middle of the Mediterranean after Turkey and Egypt denied their cruise ship, the Scarlet Lady, access to the Muslim-majority countries this past week. If one were a travel agent specializing in all-gay getaways, perhaps the first thing to consider when planning the itinerary for a cruise ship filled with gay men is how the ports of call feel about gay people. In the agent’s defense, one doesn’t come up with the ad copy “Play Like a Virgin” without sacrificing attention elsewhere.

The ten-day voyage, organized by LGBT vacation company Atlantis Events, set sail from Greece and was scheduled to dock in Kuşadasi and Istanbul, but the ship was turned away by Turkish authorities, who cited the ship’s incongruity with “moral standards” and “family values.” Turkish officials explained that the experience was organized by groups “known for behaviors incompatible with the fabric of our society and our moral values.” Cairo followed suit. Now, the men and Ms. LuPone have nothing to do but party and post videos of their shock and outrage on social media.

One man, seemingly convinced that money overrides Islamic fundamentalism, expressed his utter disbelief about the situation on X, asking, “We’re too gay to come spend a bunch of money in your country?” Another man blamed the Trump administration, explaining, “I know that this kind of prejudice is not new to these kind of countries, and obviously I don’t wanna go anywhere that shares those kind of views, but you just can’t help but feel that with this current administration, people around the world feel more emboldened to do these kinds of things.”

Patti LuPone, perhaps best known for her role as Mama Rose in Gypsy, broadcast her disappointment on Instagram. “I am shocked. The Atlantis cruise I am performing on next week has been banned from entering Turkey,” she wrote. “A ship — a magnificent ship — full of gay men. And me. Denied entry to Turkey simply because of who is on board.” This may go down as the most unforeseeable event of 2026.

Deadpan aside, one must ask: What did they expect? Same-sex marriage is illegal in Turkey and Egypt. Both countries are majority Muslim, and in fundamentalist teachings of Islam that span the world, supporting homosexual acts, marriage, and movements is considered haram, or forbidden. According to the Human Dignity Trust, as of this year, 66 jurisdictions criminalize homosexuality. Roughly 55 to 60 percent of those are Muslim-majority, even though Muslim-majority countries make up only around one-quarter of the world’s sovereign nations. Twelve of the 66 jurisdictions either impose or have the possibility of imposing the death penalty for consensual same-sex relations. Eleven of those twelve are also Muslim-majority.

There are small sects of moderate and progressive Muslims that accept and support queer movements; however, they are political in nature and exist almost exclusively in Western society. Even so, according to a Pew study conducted in 2025, 55 percent of U.S. Muslims believe that “homosexuality should be discouraged by society,” with only 47 percent of Republicans and 13 percent of Democrats saying the same.

There is also a difference between believing something is wrong and hating the people who practice it. One can condemn Islam without hating Muslims, especially since many Muslims around the world — particularly women and children — are oppressed themselves. However, too many progressives, who advocate human rights and criticize perceived homophobia on the right and among Christians, remain silent in the presence of the same and more from Islam.

Often, the LGBT movement and Western progressivism apply their own moral and cultural standards to places, people, and belief systems whose nature is fundamentally different from their own, then have the temerity to be upset when others maintain those beliefs. It is a continuing failure of the Western progressive imagination to understand the long view of Islamic history and its current reality.

Perhaps this is because the progressive left has chosen to make political bedfellows with Islamic causes, a union of convenience sometimes called the red-green alliance, between cultural Marxism and Islam. Examples of this include Queers for Palestine, the Iranian Revolution, and Lebanon’s terror-training cells. Such partnerships garner more votes, yes, but at the cost of ideological and moral consistency within the party.

All this to say that it should not have been a surprise that the countries where same-sex marriage is outlawed turned the gay cruise away. Those places should never have been on the itinerary in the first place, but the cognitive dissonance embedded in modern progressivism prevented them from seeing that.

I would venture to guess that most of the men on the ship — and Ms. LuPone — are wealthy, American, progressive, and out of touch. Many people on X, including gay conservative @Grand_Ole_Evan, have been quick to point out the irony of the situation. “I’m willing to bet that the people on that gay cruise that got turned away from multiple Muslim countries are the same ones who vote for mass immigration from those same countries,” Grand Ole Evan said in a recent X post. “These people don’t seem to realize that their tolerance is a one-way street,” he said, and “they are lucky that today they can return to a country that tolerates their existence.”

Perhaps this event will be the beginning of a paradigm shift for progressives and LGBT activists. Singer Todrick Hall, one of the passengers on the ship, shared his own shifting views in a recent Instagram video. “There’s so much hate out there in the world. We can shield ourselves . . . so much that we forget that there are people out there who are actively hating us and preventing people from loving who they love and making it legal to do so,” he said. “I’m no longer gonna be not proud to be an American because so many of the things that I have gotten to do and accomplish in my life have been because I was born on American soil, but we have a lot of work to do.”

This entire debacle reminds me of the parable about a scorpion and a frog; in this case, the scorpion is fundamentalist Islam, and the frog is the clueless progressive LGBT activist. The parable is as follows: A scorpion is unable to cross the river by himself, so he asks a frog to carry him. The frog, suspicious, asks, “How do I know you won’t sting me?” The scorpion replied, “Because if I sting you, we will both die.” Satisfied, the frog allowed the scorpion onto his back and began to cross the river. Then, the scorpion stung him. The frog was shocked. “You fool!” he cried. “Now we shall both die!” “It is in my nature,” said the scorpion, as they both sank below the water.

It is not a matter of if but of when the incompatibility of progressivism and fundamentalist Islam will be exposed. When it is, the frog will either have to dive or be stung and drown. But for now, the frogs are left to drift in the middle of the sea and consider the scorpion-lined shore.