When the Sheikh and I did disagree, our collisions only served to remind me how relatively recently the prevailing Western views had formed. Our lessons coincided with the evolution of what tolerance and human rights meant in Europe and North America. Month by month, it seemed, more states and nations expanded their definitions of the meaning of justice. Of what constituted a family. A couple. Equality. When I was born, gays in England were criminals. Midway through writing this book, they won the right to be brides and grooms. Lessons with the Sheikh underscored not merely the dynamism of
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