Wow. Folks got in two posts before we hit “but Christians do it, too”.
Seriously, iiandyiiii, you’re a smart fellow. Do you REALLY not know if homophobia is more prevalent among Muslims than Christians? REALLY???
I will try my best.
If I may, I’d rephrase this question as, “Are there ways that Islam is used to justify and normalize contemporary homophobic attitudes and violence?”
In which case the answer is yes.
The follow-up question, “Are there or can there be ways that Islam is used to combat contemporary homophobic attitudes and violence?” has answers that might include both things that progressive Muslims can get behind (e.g. giving emphasis to extant peaceful and tolerant traditions in Islam; better integrating people of Muslim backgrounds into society) and things that you would probably approve of too (e.g. greater freedoms of speech).
It’s not a coincidence. I would suggest that things that unite these countries aside from having majority Muslim populations are a shared history of colonialism, certain nationalist ideologies, and generally tendentious relationships with dominant international institutions, and these things also matter in terms of why these countries act the way they do. I’m not saying religion doesn’t matter. But again, if we say, “Islam is playing a negative role”, then the follow-up question is “Is or can Islam play a positive role?”
There aren’t easy answers to this question because Islam – like any system of meaning-making, “religious” or “secular” – does not exist isolated from other issues in people’s lives and histories.
People will point out – correctly – that the identity of the shooter will not allow one to make useful conclusions about other individuals of Afghan descent, Muslim background, or Muslim identity. You might reply – “but how do we address the real problem of structural homophobia in Afghan/Muslim communities in particular?”
Luckily there is a growing conversation on this issue being led by LBGTQ people of Muslim background or faith, of which I am sure you are aware.
See (2)
I would say it means that cultural and ideological forces that have promoted the acceptance and even celebration of LBGTQ in Britain and many Western countries have had more difficulty penetrating the British Muslim community. From an outsider’s perspective, it would seem to call for a re-evaluation of the arguments being used to try to bring change in this area, in addition to measures to protect the wellbeing of LBGTQ people throughout society.
I have grown very impatient with the way that Islam and Muslims in the West are never directly engaged with but are instead considered in the abstract as a point of contention between different political factions. I do not like the idea that all religions are the same, nor do I like demonizing the different.
I would agree homophobia and homophobic violence is a very serious problem in Islamic communities. I think there are productive and unproductive ways for different groups (e.g. Western non-Muslims, straight cis Muslims, LBGTQ Muslims, ex-Muslims, etc.) to go about addressing this problem.
Reinforcing an adherence to arbitrary definitions of “religion” and tired pseudo-rationalist secular/religion paradigms that both arose from Protestant Christian universalism and have been shamelessly repurposed as a kind of secularist triumphalism - that would be an unproductive way. Acting like Islam doesn’t matter - that would be another unproductive way.
To make a broader commentary, the whole language of “backwards” neglects the fact that all of these places have been going through time just like everyone else, they have their own experiences with these concepts like “modernity”, “secularism”, “democracy”, “human rights”, and far too often these experiences have been negative. Expressions of Islam have developed alongside this history. Instead of saying “religion bad!” and blaming “bronze age” ideals as if these people have been frozen in time, being a little introspective and looking at the history of how modernists, reformers, and secularists have acted in Muslim-majority countries for the last century or so might be more instructive in terms of understanding why things are the way they are now, and finding ways to improve.
I can understand why you would have a negative reaction, but “scared shitless” seems like an overreaction based on what I know of you and where you live. If I was talking to you in person, I would empathize with you, but I would also suggest that you - we - have the luxury of being able to take a more measured and critical approach to the particular issue of homophobia and violence in Islam and what can be done to improve things. It’s a good thing we do too, because I, at least, do not make my best decisions when scared shitless.
I have to ask:
Why is it that liberals usually admonish society to “take victims, and their personal experiences, seriously” - for instance, if women in college claim they are afraid to walk alone at night due to having been assaulted before, then society should heed their concerns and not dismiss such fears and pretend that the threat isn’t real…
…but somehow here, in this thread, we have the OP who is a gay person and he is expressing his personal experiences and his reasons for being afraid of what Islam means for his sexual orientation, and he cites many reasons as to why his concerns are well-founded, and suddenly many liberals are claiming that he is Islamophobic and are tearing down his concerns or essentially telling him that he should just deal with it and put up with what makes him afraid?
But which group has the political power in the United States?
ETA for Velocity above: simple: there are clear disagreements here on what “well founded” means, so of course there is going to be some debate.
Can you explain how colonial history, nationalism & tendentious international politics contribute to murderous hatred toward the homosexuals in your own population?
I’m more than wiling to accept that it’s not just Islam, it’s all religions, or that perhaps homophobia is a trait of all barbaric societies. But blaming Western imperialism for homophobic bigotry seems a little thin to me.
If I had to guess I’d probably guess Islam, but I without data I don’t know, and I wouldn’t trust my guess since such things are so often driven by stereotypes, bias, and bigotry.
I just had a quick look through the thread, and I can find exactly one person claiming that Valteron is Islamophobic, and that is he himself.
Could you quote these “many liberals” who have claimed he is?
This is literally never going to change. This is what we’re going to be talking about when the Mullahs come in with Kalashnikovs.
The comparison is the explicit debate topic of the OP. See point 6, among others.
It would actually be awesome if, just once, we could talk about the pathologies in Islam without having to debate the question of whether this makes the religion the most evil of all, or whatever Valteron’s theory is.
Suppose - just for hypothetical’s sake - that 10 percent of Christians think homosexuality should be criminalized and 30 percent of Muslims think homosexuality should be a crime.
In that case, both liberals and conservatives could present a technically truthful argument.
Liberals could say, *“Only a minority of Muslims support criminalizing homosexuality. And there are some Christians who want homosexuality criminalized, too.”
*
Conservatives could say, “Three times as many Muslims as Christians, percentage-wise, think homosexuality ought to be a crime, so Islam is the more anti-gay religion.”
Here you go:
As with the many opinion polls showing the frightening attitudes of British Muslims, I’m not doing any more work for you. If you actually care about finding out what British Muslims think, then it’s easy to find the many polls and assess them for yourself.
Similarly, if you are really interested in finding the many examples of the Left using the “Islamophobia” racism slur to silence criticism of Islam (even silencing Muslim victims themselves), you can Google “Regressive Left”.
If you just want to deny a reality that doesn’t suit your ideology and try to score weak rhetorical points because I won’t tee up a dozen examples for you, then I’m not interested.
nani, you said “based on what I know of you and where you live”. . . . . Are you by any chance a Muslim? Because having Muslims know where I live is not high on my list of preferences. Okay, Okay, I am being a bit paranoid. Vengeful Muslims would not go after me any more than they would go after, say, cartoonists, right?
Oh, wait. . . . . . . . . .
IAN iiandyiiii and cannot speak for him, but I suppose that he, like all of us, is perfectly well aware that in today’s world there is a higher proportion of Muslims than of adherents of other major religions espousing violent repression of homosexual behavior, and of other forms of liberal social freedom, for that matter.
Whether that also means that “homophobia” in every sense of the term is more prevalent among Muslims worldwide than among, say, Christians or Jews, I’m not sure it’s possible to determine. If by “homophobia” you mean “active violent repression of and/or draconian legal punishments for homosexuality”, then yes, worldwide, Islam is well in the lead on that front.
But it’s not necessarily that far out there in terms of opposition to homosexuality in general. As I’ve pointed out on these boards before, approximately 10-12% of Jews worldwide (e.g., about 6% of US Jews, about 13% of Israeli Jews) adhere to some form of ultra-Orthodoxy that officially rejects and proscribes homosexuality entirely. And there are many less extreme Orthodox Jews who, while not condemning homosexuality so vehemently, still believe it’s wrong.
Let’s also not forget that more than half of the over 80 states worldwide that legally prohibit and punish homosexual behavior retain those laws as a direct legacy from anti-homosexuality laws imposed by British colonial rulers in the nineteenth century, in the supposed name of civilization and Christian principles.
The Ottoman Empire—which officially self-identified as “Islamic” just as much as officially Muslim states do today—decriminalized homosexuality in 1858, well before most Christian cultures. Salafist and similar Muslim-fundamentalist movements (like National Socialism later in post-WWI Germany) adopted militantly austere and culturally conservative policies partly due to scapegoating of such “decadent” and “liberal” attitudes as the cause of their political “decline” and “weakness”. Nobody really knows what typical Muslim attitudes toward homosexuality would be like today if 19th-century Western cultures, particularly the British Empire, hadn’t so strongly politicized tolerance of homosexuality as “backwards” and “barbaric”.
Like I said, I have no problem standing up for the superiority of liberal tolerant values over theocratic repressive ones and saying that civil legal systems the world over ought to respect broadly defined civil liberties, including with respect to gay rights. I just think it’s hypocritical to ignore the fact that in most modern democratic societies these liberal tolerant values are quite a recent development, and it wasn’t all that long ago that we were telling the rest of the world, frequently at gunpoint, that they should believe pretty much the exact opposite.
So what you’re saying is I didn’t know if there were gay mosques, didn’t want to find out, but knew of at least one, or at least a guy who wanted to start one. Okay. Not sure what answer you’re looking for from me.
Ludovic-Mohamed Zahed opened a “mosque” in Paris. I put mosque in scare quotes because according to other Paris imams it isn’t a mosque, nor is it Islamic. It’s inside a buddhist temple. It’s described as a “safe place.” It’s been threatened. He doesn’t like to reveal its location. Technically, it isn’t even a gay mosque. It’s an inclusive mosque, or “gay friendly.” Men who go there want to be anonymous and not be recognized.
There’s another guy in South Africa. Dr. Taj Hargey. Also not a gay mosque. It’s a gay-friendly “open” mosque. South Africa’s governing body for Muslims declared it illegal. It’s been firebombed three times. Someone tried to drive a 4x4 through the front door. He’s been threatened with hanging and castration.
So, no gay mosques, a handful of gay imams, some support groups and Islam is still dangerously homophobic.
I did see that, but that one only works if Miller considers that Valteron has or is committing discrimination in what he’s said or done, and that’s not 100% clear.
Granting it for the sake of argument, however, that’s one, not many.
You’re actually doing the work for Valteron, since he doesn’t seem to be citing anything himself. You aren’t under any kind of obligation to back up his arguments (or Velocity’s), and I will think no less of you if you choose to not do so.
The reason I ask for others to do it is twofold; first, it’s just good practice to provide cites for points that the person/people in question is making. And second, given that people refer to them, and especially in cases where specific numbers are cited, my assumption is that those people actually have a particular cite in mind. It’s a good idea to get at the particular sources people are referring to because otherwise it may be that I or whoever go off and find one that actually they don’t agree with or support for whatever reason.
Actually, I’m mostly interested in seeing Velocity back up a statement that I don’t see how they can support. I don’t recall taking up a position on how many examples of the Left using “Islamophobia” to silence criticism of Islam there are.
I don’t understand how you can talk about the importance of looking into accusations of Islamophobia on one hand, and then call looking into accusations of Islamophobia a “weak rhetorical point” on the other.
I think your hypothetical is roughly accurate, in the sense that proportionally more Muslims are homophobic.
I’m not sure why it is necessary in this discourse to attribute that to the content of Islamic teaching, which is what people generally mean by “Islam is the more anti-gay religion.” Isn’t that a separate and substantially more complicated debate? For example, I expect there are more homophobic Baptists than Methodists. But I don’t think it has anything to do with their religious differences. Do you?
Your analogy is absurd. If women in college argue that all men should be castrated because they’re inherently dangerous to women, or that men don’t deserve the same civil liberties as women because maleness is innately harmful, then we tell those women that they’re being bigoted too.
Nobody is criticizing Valteron for honestly expressing his (justified) fear and anger that the high prevalence of repressive and violent theocratic extremism in many Muslim societies makes life less safe for him as a gay man. But his justified fear and anger on this issue don’t entitle him to stick his head up his ass and spout whatever sweeping generalizations he pleases.
Any more than women who are justifiably enraged and fearful about the widespread prevalence of rape culture and toxic models of masculinity are entitled to use that as an excuse to spew rubbish about how having a penis automatically makes you an evil person.
No, you said you didn’t know if there were any, went to find out, found one guy who wanted to start one and read nothing else on the page including when that was from while at the same time saying you wondered about security arrangements and how long it would last. The answer I was looking for was whether the explanation for that seeming disparity was one of the suggestions I had or something else.
Is what “other Paris imams” think a compelling argument to you? I would have thought that you would be in disagreement with them on many issues.
Sorry, your objection to it not being a “gay mosque” is that it’s actually a “gay-friendly “open” mosque”? That seems like hair-splitting.
Did you forget the gay mosque in the US I mentioned directly to you earlier? In a post that you quoted, and therefore (I hope) you read?
See, that head-in-ass “sweeping generalization” stuff I was talking about? Prime example.
In any case, dude, all any of us on these boards know about where you live is what you have voluntarily told us.
So if you were hoping to keep the world’s Muslims from knowing what country you live in, I’m afraid it’s a bit late to think of that. You could always emigrate, of course.
We don’t need to hypothesize. Here The Global Divide on Homosexuality | Pew Research Center are the results of a poll for every major country. Now mind you, I realize the question is “Should society accept homosexuality”? (yes or no) NOT whether it should be legalized. So it implies greater acceptance of gays than merely not criminalising. But I maintain it gives us some idea.
On the “Yes” side we have Canada 80%, US 60%, Spain 88%, Britain 76%, etc. Every significant country in Latin America is on the “yes” side. True, we have Poland almost equally split and Russia on the “No” side, but then look at Muslim countries. Indonesia 3% “yes”, Pakistan 2%, Palestinian Territories 4%. I wonder if those clowns in “Gays for Palestine” realize, as Douglas Murray says, that if they were in Palestine they would have to flee to Israel to keep from being killed?