Does Islam drive homophobic violence?

Great Debates
481

I’m not convinced that this is the case. While there’s no predisposition to hate gays in particular, the prevalence of tribal warfare in human history suggests that we do have some default predisposition to hate otherness, which includes homosexuality. In civilized society, such behavior is repressed (and ideally stamped out) by education and exposure. Even secularism, which has been suggested earlier in the thread to be the best correlate for LGBTQ acceptance, is a proxy (or perhaps a consequence of) higher rates of education and cultural exposure. This explains the demographics that were mentioned earlier in the thread regarding the prevalent opposition to gay rights among religiously disparate groups (Evangelical Christians, Muslims, and [religiously unspecified but probably Orthodox] Russians). All of these groups are either under-educated compared to the Western norm, underexposed to LGBT people (see here for statistics on Russia; for those who can’t read it, 80% of respondents believe they have never met a homosexual person), or both. This, combined with the previously cited preponderance of Jews, Buddhists, and Hindus who support equal rights for sexual minorities, suggests that a combination of social exposure and education drive tolerance for “other” viewpoints, rather than the absence of religion or some other social vector.

I don’t think it’s fair to compare the views of Muslim immigrants to America with those of Muslims in Bangladesh (I’m singling out this comment for reply, but throughout the thread I’ve seen references to American Muslims that appeared to generalize opinions to the rest of the world). As you mentioned yourself, US Muslims are distinct in being able to immigrate, which is likely due to having a higher level of education. This satisfies one of the criteria which I mentioned above, which significantly cuts down on the percentage of adherents who fail both requirements (education and exposure). Beyond this I don’t have any statistics, but I would assume that exposure to minority cultures upon arrival significantly moderates the immigrants’ outlook, thereby satisfying the second criterion. Anecdotally, I have seen this with a friend of mine whose views on violent Palestinan resistance became much more pacifist upon getting to know myself and several other Jews.

Regarding what to do to assuage Valteron and panache45’s concerns: I’m curious as to what would be constitutional regarding profiling in the immigration process (for both Canada and the US). If the task of immigration is solely to minimize the number of people entering the country who harbor bigoted views, then it seems that the most efficient filter (barring sealed borders) would be one that tar gets certain demographics for intense personal scrutiny during interviews on this topic. These demographics would include educated people coming from generally intolerant societies, and poor people coming from more tolerant societies. While this policy would theoretically treat Russians Atheists, Ugandan Christians, and Saudi Muslims the same, I’m curious if it could be legally applied. Denying entry to those who are opposed to equal rights for ethnic and sexual minorities but have never advocated physical violence would infringe upon freedom of expression (do potential immigrants have any semblance of this right?) Of course, if there are enough resources to extensively interview all immigrants to elucidate their views on minority cultures, this would be the more optimal solution.

The question of what to do with domestic radicals is more difficult. Other than intensively monitoring public communications (e.g. message boards dedicated to white supremacy, Islamism, etc), I have no short term ideas. In the long term, increased funding of K-12 education combined with a mandatory and early diversity-oriented curriculum would produce more educated and empathetic immigrants who would be less prone to violence, but the lag time between implementation and results would be measured in decades.

482

I have never advocated any kind of ideological litmus test for immigrants. If people with bigoted views should be denied admission, does that mean U.S. citizens with bigoted views should be deported? We are not a country of fascist thought police. The only people who should be kept out are those with clearly violent intentions, to the extent that can be ascertained. Bigotry should not be a barrier to immigration.

483

No. You stop pretending that Islam is some monolithic structure that includes all its adherents in a single set of beliefs. Evidence is on my side and you are simply repeated the tropes of idiots/professional haters like Gisele Littman, Bruce Thornton, Geert Wilders, and Franklin Graham, and now embraced by buffoons like Donald Trump.

Beyond that, accusing me of a “Christianity was once worse than Islam” complaint is rubbish as that is not an argument I put forth. What I have said is that the frivolous claim that Islam has to be worse than Christianity is denied by the evidence that, regardless of the actions of Mohammed, there have been times and periods when each of those two competing philosophies have been more harsh or more compassionate than the other, something that could not have happened if the personality of the leading figure placed some sort of absolute stamp on the belief system through all time.
ETA: I doubt that you have a single shred of evidence regarding your nonsense claim regarding the “academic left.”

484

you need to ask as he repeats the same assertions across all subject ad nauseum even after being factually corrected- just waits a few days to repeat.

it is absolutely no different than his “transgender is invented/promoted by communists”

Be ready to send parachuting moto-researchers to find out.

485

But this isn’t what anybody’s saying. All I’ve done is to refute nachtmusik’s original silly assertion that the mere willingness to immigrate to the US somehow makes US Muslims “least representative” of all Muslims.

If nachtmusik or anybody else is trying to argue that the religious or social views of Muslim immigrants in the US may be different from those of Muslims in their home countries, for the reasons you suggest or for any other reasons, I’m not arguing with that as a reasonable hypothesis, though of course we’d need to see some fairly detailed studies to know exactly to what extent and why they differ. But obviously the mere fact of being WILLING to emigrate to the US is not what’s responsible for such differences.
If people would be more careful about the specifics of what they’re actually asserting, we wouldn’t have to waste these multiple posts clarifying the results of their carelessness.

486

Like the attempted arguments from “scriptural differences”, this attempted argument from “unequal chronological maturity” is AFAICT simple, straightforward, and wrong.

If it were valid, we would not see the historical periods repeatedly cited above when many Islamic cultures were more tolerant of homosexuality than many contemporary Christian cultures were.

If increasing respect for gay rights had some kind of direct correlation with a religion’s chronological age, there wouldn’t have been any of those historical situations where Islam as the younger religion often showed more humanity towards gays than Christianity as the elder religion did.

(And, of course, we wouldn’t have the current situation where large swathes of the Jewish and Hindu religions, both of which are considerably older than both Islam and Christianity, still reject homosexuality as immoral/forbidden.)

487

It’s especially eyerolling when you consider that any time an Islamic society institutes a barbaric law, Magiver and his ilk hasten to jump to the conclusion that the law has to be due essentially and solely to Islam itself. No complexities, no external factors, it’s totally and intrinsically just because Muhammad was a mean old warlord, duh.

But when he hears about a Christian society instituting a barbaric law (and it’s hard to believe that a reasonably well-informed Doper has no clue that Christian societies used to execute homosexuals, specifically because Christian doctrine condemned homosexuality as a heinous sin), he immediately starts squirming around for the same sort of “cultural alternative” explanation that he refuses to consider in the case of Islamic societies.

“Well maybe there were other contributing historical/cultural factors besides mere literalist interpretation of religious scriptures that helped produce such laws!..” yeah pal, that’s kind of our point.

488

I’m waiting for a cite that British law was based on the writings of Jesus. This isn’t a minor talking point this is the crux of the argument. Mohammad specifically laid out a legal system to be followed. There is a direct link behind Sharia law, the actions of Mohammad, and Islamic terrorism. It’s not up for debate.

You can’t keep going to the well of excuses every time there’s another Islamic terrorist act and expect a credible argument.

489

Then why were there times in history in which majority Muslim societies were more open and tolerant of homosexuality than majority Christian societies, like, say, the Ottoman Empire compared to much of its contemporaries in Europe?

490

Here’s a simple task for you to do. Cite a thread involving an Islamic society instituting a barbaric law.

Theses threads continue to pop up because of new Islamic terrorist attacks. The attacks are not based on any new law, they’re based on OLD laws. Laws based on Mohammad and his writings. It’s bizarre that you continue to deny this is the cause.

Maybe if we kept a running total of the attacks as they happen would hit home. Let’s look in the news… Yep, another Islamic terrorist attack

Insert your excuse here.

491

Now isn’t special. Events in the present aren’t somehow more magically representative of a perfect interpretation of a religion’s scripture than events in the past. At times in the past, things were different in many ways – sometimes Christians were more violent, sometimes Muslims were more tolerant of homosexuality, etc. I see no reason to believe that statistical correlations now are somehow more representative of the “correct” interpretation of various scriptures than the times in which homosexuals were more likely to be safe in Muslim societies than Christian societies.

492

Aside from the obvious subversion of Christianity as a political tool and it’s dismantling by Martin Luther? Luther had all the tools needed to tear it down. He shoved the religion’s own prophet up it’s ass.

In order for Islam to move away from it’s violent problems it has to move AWAY from it’s prophet or selectively ignore his teachings.

493

You mean interpret it differently than the violent fanatics? If you want, you can pretend that ISIS is the perfect correct interpretation of Islam (despite ignoring many passages from the Quran that promote peace), and peaceful Muslims are falsely interpreting it, but I prefer not to accept ISIS propoganda.

Hint: there has never been a “correct” and “false” interpretation of any religion in human history anywhere or any time. They’re all just interpretations, and neither correct nor false. The violent fanatics ignore (or interpret differently) the peaceful parts of the Quran, and the peaceful Muslims ignore (or interpret differently) the violent parts.

Unless you’re a true believer, I suppose – true believers probably disagree with me.

494

Oh, so some religions can be “subverted” as a “political tool”, apparently.

As long as it’s a religion you’re in favor of, you’re willing to admit that it can be part of political/cultural developments that are affected by other factors than its own intrinsic “nature”. :dubious:

495

Sure, the radical Muslims who promote such oppressive laws defend them as being based on Muslim scripture. Nobody denies that. And the progressive Muslims who promote anti-oppression laws saying the exact opposite ALSO defend them as being based on Muslim scripture.

Similarly, today’s radical Christians who advocate the death penalty for homosexuality defend it as being based on Christian scripture. And progressive Christians who favor gay rights ALSO defend their position as being based on Christian scripture.

As one of the evangelical Christian speakers at last year’s so-called National Religious Liberties Conference wrote,

So no, nobody’s denying that theocratic-extremist radical Muslims use their interpretation of their religion to justify barbaric oppression and violence. But so do theocratic-extremist radical Christians.

Consequently, it’s clear that there is not some “inherent” difference in the “dogma” or “scripture” or “progenitor” of the religion that makes Christianity automatically gay-friendly and Islam automatically gay-hostile. In both cases, what matters is the religious interpretation that’s being endorsed.

You mean, the way that most modern Christians selectively ignore the “full implementation of God’s civil penalties” that are part of Christian teachings? Sure, if “selectively ignore” is how you want to spell “interpret”, fine by me. The problem is your hypocrisy in pretending that cutting out the violent bits of Christian dogma is doctrinally legitimate while cutting out the violent bits of Muslim dogma is “moving away” from its “true” nature.
(And I’ll never understand how someone who can’t spell “its” correctly somehow manages to get “his” right. Surely for consistency’s sake you’d write “hi’s”.)

496

Martin Luther was hardly a fountain of love who stopped all of Christianity’s hateful acts.

Sent from my SM-G900T using Tapatalk

497

no one is seriously advocating for deporting citizens. However, not deporting citizens is very different than controlling who comes in in the first place.

498

What is ISIS and the long list of Islamic terrorist groups misinterpreting? Or more to the point, why is there a long list of Islamic terrorist groups in the first place?

It’s truly wonderful that a large number of Muslims aren’t members of terrorist groups but that in no way ignores the religion behind those who are.

499

According to the peaceful Muslims, they’re misinterpreting the many, many parts of the Quran that condemn violence and murder and praise peace and kindness.

500

It’s not a misinterpretation to promote peace AND to specify penalties for those who do not subscribe to all his rules.

Again, why are there so many Islamic terrorist groups?