As you are no doubt already aware, I, Valteron am a crazy bigoted Islamophobe, so I will in all humility ask questions and allow myself to be enlightened by all the other posters.
Is it possible that Islamic doctrines (and penalties prescribed by Islamic scripture) regarding gays account for murderously homophobic attitudes, arrests, massacres and executions both within and without the Muslim world?
Does it mean anything that the vast majority of the 57 countries who refused to sign the UN declaration on LBGT rights and instead signed a 2008 statement opposing LGBT rights were Muslim countries?
Does it mean anything that the alleged shooter in the worst shooting massacre in US history at a gay club in Orlando on June 12, 2016, was of Afghan descent (which suggests that he is Muslim athough this fact has not been confirmed), and that according to his father he had become enraged when he saw two men kissing? Do you suppose religious upbringing might have played a role in his homophobic attitudes?
Does it mean anything that some 10-12 countries or jurisdictions that currently use the death penalty on gays (including Afghanistan) are all or almost all Muslim? (There is uncertainty as to the present status of law in Uganda regarding the death penalty and gays, so feel free to trot that country out as if one oddball exception contradicts the overall facts). Do you realize that Muslim countries that do not have the death penalty for gays have various penalties up to life in prison?
What does it mean that polls in Britain indicate a solid majority of British Muslims want to recriminalize homosexuality?
While it is true that some Christians and Jews are homophobic, and while it is true that the Old Testament calls for the death of homosexuals, do you honestly feel that this mostly forgotten bit of bronze-age scripture can seriously be trotted out as the moral equivalent of the regular persecutions and executions of gays by Muslims in the world today? Are these two situations really comparable in any way?
Is the killing and imprisonment of gays a mainstream position in Christianity or Judaism, or is it the opinion of a very few, isolated nutbars? What about Islam? Will you at least admit that it is a mainstream position advocated by hundreds of millions of Muslims?
(As I write this, news services are reporting that guns and bombs possibly intended for the Los Angeles Gay Pride celebrations have been discovered by police. Since the news and the alleged perpetrators remain uncertain at present, I will not comment further, but let us watch the news.)
But here is my final question. And I would not mind if some Muslims on this forum answered this question as well. Call me a bigot and an Islamophobe. But can you understand that as a gay person who has known physical assault and discrimination in the 60s, 70s and even later, can you understand why I am fucking scared shitless of Islam and Sharia law? Can you understand why immigration from a countries where millions of people believe gays should be killed or punished alarms me?
Can I ask for a modicum of understanding instead of derision?
I’m sure certain groups within Islam as a whole advocate homophobia, just as certain groups within Christianity (and Judaism, and probably other religions as well) drive homophobia. It’s entirely possible (or not – I honestly don’t know) that a larger portion of Muslims subscribe to these kinds of beliefs than Christians and/or Jews. But the problem is not with Islam as a whole – it’s with the specific groups within Islam (and other religions) that promote hatred and violence.
Certain Islamic groups? You mean like, 99.99999999999999999999%? That’s not “certain” groups. For all practical intents and purposes, that’s all of them.
I’m unaware of such statistics (and suspect that there are none). If you have a cite that all Muslims advocate for hatred and violence of this type, then please share it.
You are trying to erase the clear, obvious line between Islamic homophobia and the west. Open your eyes. The countries or jurisdictions (like northern Nigeria) that have the death penalty for gays are all Muslim countries. In most western democratic countries, gays have all rights including the right to legally marry and to be protected from discrimination. While many religious groups in the west disapprove of homosexuality as a sin, can you name anyone except the Klu Klux Klan or some crazy marginalized charch that seriously advocated killing gays?
Are you trying to tell me that when countries like Iran, Afghanistan, Mauritania, Yemen or Saudi Arabia behead, stone and hang gays in the 21st century, they do not have a majority of their population agreeing with these killings?
You are trying to excuse Islamic homophobia with comparisons to the west that do not stand up to scrutiny.
What you just did there, basically. I’m giving you a +.5 bonus to your score.
In case you’re being serious; well poisoning if when you set out an opinion and within it preemptively attempt to discredit possible responses. “Can I ask for a modicum of understanding rather than derison?”, for example, suggests not only that the responses you will get will be derisive, but that they will also not come from understanding if they are, and that just a modicum of understanding is an ask. It’s shading responses before you even know what they are.
You said certain Islamic groups advocate homophobia. No, they all do. Perhaps there is a “gay muslim” group someplace. That would be, for all practical intents and purposes, zero percent of Islam. It’s not “certain groups within Islam.” It’s virtually all of Islam.
The fact that it is still in 2016 a mainstream view in much of the world to persecute people as subhuman for their sexual orientation or gender identity makes me truly ashamed to be a member of human race.
There will always be some minority of evil bigots. But I think it should no longer be socially acceptable to claim to be a tolerant moderate if your views incorporate any degree of reverence whatsoever for the Bible or the Koran. These books incorporate an explicit ideology of murderous hatred. It is no justification to say that not every page is evil, or they are open to interpretation, or to claim that as a moderate you just ignore the evil bits.
Of course only a minority of either Muslims or Christians are hateful bigots; and there are plenty of hateful bigots who are not religious at all. But that’s whatabouttery. If you are not prepared to stand up with the civilized world and state clearly that your holy books are simply wrong, that they are not sacred, that they contain gross moral errors, then you are part of the problem. And if your society is one where publicly saying such a thing would get you imprisoned or killed, then this is not a minority problem at all.
Same could be said about the Jewish as well. That said 2 out of the 3 make an effort to distance themselves from the Bronze or Stone Age ideals of their respective books.
This post has very little to do with what it responded to, and mostly is arguing against straw men. If you want to respond to specific points I’ve made, then I’d be happy to listen.
As a gay man who survived decades of discrimination, how can you not recognize that it’s just as evil when you do it to others, as it is when they do it to you?
I admit that I am anticipating arguments that have not yet been made, but there is a certain justification to doing this when you anticipate the same, stupid arguments to be trotted out that you have heard a million times.
For example I get tired of refuting the “not every Muslim thinks this way” argument (I am sure this reasoning was a consolation for the 50 or more shooting victims in the Pulse night-club in Orlando as they lay dying. So what? Not 100% of Germans agreed with Naziism, did they? Not 100% of Christians agreed with the Inquisition.
The question is not, I think, if a strict interpretation of Islam leads to homophobia, because of course it does. No question about that. So does a radical view of practically any religion.
The question should be whether the religions predominant in the western world have moved from that extreme puritanism and become more moderate while the underdeveloped nations and cultures haven’t because of something immanent and specific in the Islamic religions or if the causes are mostly just cultural.
Personally, I go for the second option. Culture shapes religious interpretation. A lot of people think otherwise.