The authors also claimed that, "we found that couples make sexual agreements because they want to build a strong relationship rather than for HIV protection."

"With straight people, it's called affairs or cheating," according to Colleen Hoff, the lead researcher for the Gay Couples Study, "but with gay people it does not have such negative connotations."

But there clearly is a war going on, and in the West, it is escalating. Although there are still many points of view, two positions are separating themselves out-becoming further and further apart. People seem to be choosing sides more fervently than before. Conservative religious people who once had little interest in politics and government are now alarmed and waking up to realize that they have some power to change things.

In Kenya, al Shabaab terrorists from neighboring Somalia stir up trouble and make grotesque threats. And we all know what bestial acts Sudan's Islamist government has perpetrated against black Christians over the decades.

Throughout the region, patience is wearing thin. Africa's impassioned forms of charismatic and Pentecostal Christianity won't turn the other cheek forever. The coming backlash could be ferocious (even dictatorships could exploit a vengeful popular mood).

On some of these measures, these countries can be considered more progressive than the more economically advanced United States, where the push for gay rights is a state-by-state battle, opposed both by the Catholic Church and much of the Protestant community.