Race in Red Hood

As a follow-up to the various discussions of race in SF/F, I wanted to talk about one of my own stumbling blocks as I was writing Red Hood's Revenge.  This book takes place primarily in Talia's home country of Arathea, described in earlier books as a desert culture with a vaguely middle-eastern flavor.  (Similar to the pseudo-European flavor of Lorindar.)

I wrote a scene in the first draft that I wasn't happy with.  It involved the Arathean attitude toward homosexuality, which basically amounted