I want to talk about politics, because you are reading the opinion section, so chances are it’s a subject you enjoy. My mother is the smartest women I’ve ever met, and she once told me never to make political discussions personal. Today I wish to ignore her invariably wise advice and talk about my personal politics. This is my last column that will appear in this section, so why not? My name is Munier, and I’m a half-Palestinian gay guy from Poughkeepsie. Let’s be friends.

I never found growing up in what crass statisticians call a “bi-racial” household that remarkable. So what I had an interesting father who spoke fluent Arabic and listened to cassette tapes of women making groaning sounds in c-minor. All I knew was that hummus and fava beans looked disgusting, and Arab music was slightly less boring than listening to News Radio 88 describing a “traffic pile-up on the in-bound Maj. Deegan Expressway.”

Eventually my parents decided my siblings and I needed a religious education. If my dad didn’t start bringing us to Mosque, she would take us to Catholic Mass. My father promptly enrolled us in Muslim religion school.

Sundays became a traumatic experience for me. You can’t take a ten-year-old raised without religion and suddenly try to convince him that this guy — the one with the white beard sitting on a cloud who made cameos in various cartoon series — was real. No, seriously… he is! Right…

At Mosque, I’d spend half the time standing around feeling awkward being the only white guy, and the other half of the time I’d be cursing myself for forgetting to bring socks. Apparently if the Pope had to take his shoes off in a Mosque, so did I.

My disdain for the religion promptly faded after 9-11. Suddenly American Muslims were victims of minority oppression. Naturally, I felt cool and “edgy.” I once avoided discussing religion out of embarrassment, now I’d explain about the “Five pillars of Islam” and how “Muslims don’t worship cows. We worship a single God, whose name is Allah in Arabic.” I’d argue how historically, the religion was very progressive, and how it emphasized a direct, personal connection with God.

But while I was busy spreading the doctrine of Islam to anyone who would listen, I couldn’t help feeling like a hypocrite. I am and always will be a thoroughbred atheist. The closest thing I’ve had to a ‘spiritual awakening’ was in AP Calculus when my teacher proved that [ exp(i * pi ) + 1 ] = 0.

My romantic fantasy of being the edgy, cultured Muslim was at strict odds with my core beliefs. The nail in the coffin came with the advent of puberty. One day, freshly minted hormones began coursing their way through my bloodstream, and before I knew it, a front-page photo of Brad Pitt in a supermarket tabloid was giving me butterflies in my stomach. Suddenly I understood why I never really enjoyed playing baseball or watching Power Rangers.

Figuring out I was gay was not a traumatic experience. For one, I had perfect timing: the epiphany came right after our biology class did a unit on genetic mutations. And so I, the budding young scientist, deduced that some set of genes which coded the male sex drive had been mutated. It could have been worse — at least I had two eyes, a functioning brain and devilishly cute freckles. So my genes were a mixed bag. Science explained all this and helped me come to terms with myself. Religion did not. Newton… you are in. That means Allah, you are out. Please leave the runway.

As our generation grew into political awareness, I noticed a lot of people really enjoyed explaining why gay people like me were going to hell. I guess that’s fair, since I personally think people will spend the rest of existence slowly rotting into thermodynamic equilibrium. The fires of eternity certainly seemed cleaner.

I never really had a choice of which political party I could join. Republicans want to kill the homos and launch a crusade against the A-Rabs. Democrats like health care and education. Since I’m homo and at least part A-Rab, it seemed I was a Democrat. I also think healthcare and education are cool too, so things seem to be working out well.

I’ve always been passionate about politics, and given my unique background and personal biases this has always proven treacherous. I spent this past summer living with a guy who used the word “faggot” in every fifth sentence. Needless to say, I had a lot of fun playing mind games with him and his various insecurities. I can be a real bitch sometimes.

My other hot-headed issue is the Israeli – Palestinian conflict. Let me begin by saying I am in favor of a two state solution. Now, let me continue by saying I stand at odds with many aspects, like the Apartheid Wall and the control of Palestinian water supplies. I also feel many American Zionists are far too hostile when discussing the conflict, and must open their eyes to compromise.

At the end of the day, we all need to recognize that our beliefs are formed from observations heavily distorted by our own personal lenses. Mine are thick, nerdy bifocals, and they only look appropriate on the face of a guy from a town with a name as crazy as Poughkeepsie. Naturally these beliefs manage to offend sometimes, but through this clash we learn about how others see the world. So let’s sit down sometime underneath an oak tree on Libe Slope, and maybe we can swap prescriptions.