Umm . . . This Probably Wasn't a Good Idea

Now, I don't judge others for their politics, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation or much else, but rank stupidity that verges on the suicidal might be reason for passing judgment. If you live in a Kingdom that has a Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (the Hay'a or Commission in popular parlance), with a pervasive religious police (the mutawa‘in) , it just might not be the smartest move in the world to post a YouTube video in which you're wearing a police uniform and making gay advances.

The YouTube auteur in question is, according to that Arab News link, under arrest, charged with homosexuality, impersonating a police officer, and something called "general security," which I think is Saudi bureaucratese for "just because." Even countries without laws against the other two tend to frown on impersonating an officer.

Now a person's sexual preferences are their private business, but, uh, making a video in a Saudi police uniform and posting it to YouTube? I mean, there's self-expression, and I've defended plenty of bloggers and others who've been arrested for self-expression, but, hey, guy, have you not noticed you're living in Saudi Arabia, or what? This is Darwin Awards territory. Here's an LA Times comment on it. Of course they shouldn't arrest him for a stupid but seemingly harmless prank, but is he really that naive? (I'm assuming there's not some deeper story here than Arab News is telling us, and impersonating a police officer seems to have gilded the lily, as it were.)