# Islamophobia follows from observing Islam-majority nations **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 7, 2017, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islamophobia-follows-from-observing-islam-majority-nations/779229 "2017-02-07T15:05:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![Rick\_Sanchez](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e19adc/32.png) [@Rick\_Sanchez](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Sanchez)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2017, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islamophobia-follows-from-observing-islam-majority-nations/779229/161 "2017-02-18T11:45:37Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > What “Muslim country” was it that a gay man was tied to a fence after being severely beaten and left to die there? United something-or-another? > [@Monty](#): > > What “Muslim country” was it that a gay man was tied to a fence after being severely beaten and left to die there? United something-or-another? There are ten countries in the world where homosexual activity is a capital crime. That is to say, there are laws on the books which allow the government to arrest you, try you, and (depending on the whims of the judge) execute you for homosexual activity. Those countries are: [ul] [li] Iran[/li][li] Saudi Arabia[/li][li] Yemen[/li][li] Nigeria[/li][li] Qatar[/li][li] Nigeria[/li][li] Afghanistan[/li][li] Mauritania[/li][li] Sudan[/li][li] Brunei[/li][/ul] The reasoning behind the laws in each case is explicitly religious. Your attempt to draw a false equivalency between theocratic oppression of gays and extra-judicial hate crimes in secular nations is disingenuous and offensive. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2017, 11:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islamophobia-follows-from-observing-islam-majority-nations/779229/162 "2017-02-18T11:55:14Z")
> [@Rick\_Sanchez](#): > > There are ten countries in the world where homosexual activity is a capital crime. That is to say, there are laws on the books which allow the government to arrest you, try you, and (depending on the whims of the judge) execute you for homosexual activity. Those countries are: > > [ul] > [li] Iran[/li][li] Saudi Arabia[/li][li] Yemen[/li][li] Nigeria[/li][li] Qatar[/li][li] Nigeria[/li][li] Afghanistan[/li][li] Mauritania[/li][li] Sudan[/li][li] Brunei[/li][/ul] > > The reasoning behind the laws in each case is explicitly religious. Your attempt to draw a false equivalency between theocratic oppression of gays and extra-judicial hate crimes in secular nations is disingenuous and offensive. I made no false equivalency. ---
**Author:** ![Hiker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3be4f8/32.png) [@Hiker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hiker)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2017, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islamophobia-follows-from-observing-islam-majority-nations/779229/163 "2017-02-18T12:08:54Z")
> [@Rick\_Sanchez](#): > > There are ten countries in the world where homosexual activity is a capital crime. That is to say, there are laws on the books which allow the government to arrest you, try you, and (depending on the whims of the judge) execute you for homosexual activity. Those countries are: > > [ul] > [li] Iran[/li][li] Saudi Arabia[/li][li] Yemen[/li][li] Nigeria[/li][li] Qatar[/li][li] Nigeria[/li][li] Afghanistan[/li][li] Mauritania[/li][li] Sudan[/li][li] Brunei[/li][/ul] > > The reasoning behind the laws in each case is explicitly religious. Your attempt to draw a false equivalency between theocratic oppression of gays and extra-judicial hate crimes in secular nations is disingenuous and offensive. That is true and far be it from me to defend the Islamist stance on LGBT rights. But to tell the whole story I think it is worth mentioning that homosexual activity also carries a penalty of up to life in prison in Christian majority nations such as Tanzania or Uganda. The latter even saw a move to introduce the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality” as recently as 2009 and that was only turned down after a lengthy debate and much foreign pressure. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2017, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islamophobia-follows-from-observing-islam-majority-nations/779229/164 "2017-02-18T13:39:00Z")
> [@Human\_Action](#): > > Clearly, you don’t know what “universal” means, even after I went to the trouble of showing you the definition. And you appear to be confused by what a “pattern” is…I guess the world is not warming after all, given that cold spell we had last week. LOL But again, if you find reassurance that the Muslim-majority nations are not all that different from western democracies because a handful of nations comprising a handful of the world’s Muslims mean the pattern is not universal, chillax and enjoy your point. You might want to avoid wandering out of your marriage vows even in the nations you think don’t follow the Muslim-majority pattern; in the Southern Eastern-Europe countries you seem to think are somehow close to western democracy, [over 20% of the Muslim majority still want to stone you and your lover for adultery. Around 10% would like you executed if you abandon Islam. No pressure.](http://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-beliefs-about-sharia/)🙂 Meantime, the vast majority of people living in the vast majority of Muslim-majority nations will continue to live within a culture and under laws that are antithetical to western democracy. And that will continue to drive Islamophobia because that pattern is so universal despite pockets of exceptions. You see, when you have to become a fourth-grader pushing a definitional nuance so you get to be right instead of actually being right, you haven’t gained much in the way of substantive contribution to the debate… ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2017, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islamophobia-follows-from-observing-islam-majority-nations/779229/165 "2017-02-18T13:44:08Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > What “Muslim country” was it that a gay man was tied to a fence after being severely beaten and left to die there? United something-or-another? So…is this one of those deals where you are trying to pretend the average pattern is about the same? If not, what’s your point? That any nation has idiots? Completely agreed. And irrelevant to the question of whether the culture and laws follow fundamentally different patterns. I await your examples of the generosity with which Muslim-majority nations extend permits to gay pride parades. Sheesh. Surely we can do better here than this fourth grade stuff… LOL ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2017, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islamophobia-follows-from-observing-islam-majority-nations/779229/166 "2017-02-18T13:56:49Z")
> [@Revenant\_Threshold](#): > > I think you’ve missed my issue with your argument [on the prior page](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=19991277&postcount=126) to this post - you don’t seem to have provided any evidence or argument for the “observation by the west… is the fundamental thing driving Islamophobia” part. So far as I can tell you’ve just asserted it repeatedly. Well, you are welcome to come up with some alternative explanations for why Islamophobia is as prevalent as it is. It is my assertion, correct. If it were the case that Muslim-majority nations are fabulous places to live, and the world was trying to flock there instead of to the western democracies, I don’t think Islamophobia would be nearly as prevalent. Almost all religions–and especially Christianity and Islam–are full of extremist nutcases. Further, most of the public–including adherents–are not particularly familiar with fine points of texts or theology. So what really drives perception is not what a religion “believes” or stands for. It’s what a religion does, so to speak. On paper you would not have any trouble showing the viciousness of Old Testament Jews as being on par with ISIS. (Read Joshua) In practice, western democracies don’t have the same culture and laws as do Muslim-majority nations, even where Jews and Christians predominate among the population. In short, I hold that Islamophobia is driven by the fact that most citizens in western democracies think that, where Muslims are in the majority, the way the country is run sucks. I’m not interested in debating so much whether it does actually suck or not–I am just saying that Islamophobia is driven by that observation, versus some sort of failure to understand the fine points of Islamic theology. ---
**Author:** ![Hiker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3be4f8/32.png) [@Hiker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hiker)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2017, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islamophobia-follows-from-observing-islam-majority-nations/779229/167 "2017-02-18T14:20:12Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > Well, you are welcome to come up with some alternative explanations for why Islamophobia is as prevalent as it is. It is my assertion, correct. > > If it were the case that Muslim-majority nations are fabulous places to live, and the world was trying to flock there instead of to the western democracies, I don’t think Islamophobia would be nearly as prevalent. Almost all religions–and especially Christianity and Islam–are full of extremist nutcases. Further, most of the public–including adherents–are not particularly familiar with fine points of texts or theology. So what really drives perception is not what a religion “believes” or stands for. It’s what a religion does, so to speak. On paper you would not have any trouble showing the viciousness of Old Testament Jews as being on par with ISIS. (Read Joshua) In practice, western democracies don’t have the same culture and laws as do Muslim-majority nations, even where Jews and Christians predominate among the population. > > In short, I hold that Islamophobia is driven by the fact that most citizens in western democracies think that, where Muslims are in the majority, the way the country is run sucks. I’m not interested in debating so much whether it does actually suck or not–I am just saying that Islamophobia is driven by that observation, versus some sort of failure to understand the fine points of Islamic theology. I don’t think perception is driven by what a religion does, as you put it. It is driven by what\* the most visible part \*of a religion does. And in the case of Islam the most extremist part of the religion is also the most visible one. I do not think that many people in America or Europe have more than a very vague idea of what life is like in Indonesia (the most populous Muslim dominated country). But they have read reports about what life under the Taliban in Afghanistan was like and that has shaped their perception of the religion. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2017, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islamophobia-follows-from-observing-islam-majority-nations/779229/168 "2017-02-18T14:28:07Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > Well, you are welcome to come up with some alternative explanations for why Islamophobia is as prevalent as it is. It is my assertion, correct. Come now, that’s not how debate works. You’ve made an assertion; it’s your responsibility, if only to yourself, to have reasons to make that assertion. If you hold something to be true then you shouldn’t need to say “Come up with alternatives, then”; you should have eliminated the alternatives yourself, and supported the explanation, to whatever rigor your personal standards require. > [@](#): > > In short, I hold that Islamophobia is driven by the fact that most citizens in western democracies think that, where Muslims are in the majority, the way the country is run sucks. Did I miss your evidence for this “most citizens in western democracies think” bit? Or evidence that Islamophobia is the result of this? You still seem to be just asserting these things. ---
**Author:** ![GulfTiger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e79b87/32.png) [@GulfTiger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GulfTiger)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2017, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islamophobia-follows-from-observing-islam-majority-nations/779229/169 "2017-02-18T14:31:04Z")
> [@Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](#): > > Stating there is an inherent problem with Muslim immigration because of their propensity for terrorism is clearly a bigoted statement. Yes it is. But is bigotry always wrong, or does it sometimes have a practical application? ---
**Author:** ![Hiker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3be4f8/32.png) [@Hiker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hiker)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2017, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islamophobia-follows-from-observing-islam-majority-nations/779229/170 "2017-02-18T14:40:34Z")
> [@GulfTiger](#): > > Yes it is. > > But is bigotry always wrong, or does it sometimes have a practical application? Would you think it wrong, if the Netherlands decided to bar US citizens from entering because of their propensity for murder? I guess you would and rightly so - despite the fact that the US homicide rate is about five times that of the Netherlands. Bigotry is always wrong. ---
**Author:** ![GulfTiger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e79b87/32.png) [@GulfTiger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GulfTiger)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2017, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islamophobia-follows-from-observing-islam-majority-nations/779229/171 "2017-02-18T14:48:09Z")
at its core it is nothing but a heuristic technique, a mental shortcut it’s not meant to be 100% accurate, but at the same time it’s not 100% wrong ---
**Author:** ![Hiker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3be4f8/32.png) [@Hiker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hiker)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2017, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islamophobia-follows-from-observing-islam-majority-nations/779229/172 "2017-02-18T15:04:02Z")
> [@GulfTiger](#): > > at its core it is nothing but a heuristic technique, a mental shortcut > > it’s not meant to be 100% accurate, but at the same time it’s not 100% wrong Well … the US homicide rate is at 3.9 in 100,000, so if we were to assume that Americans are generally homicidal, we’d be 99.9961% wrong. I consider that to be pretty bad. If you use your sample - whatever that may be - to equate Muslim = terrorist, you won’t come out any better. I know that predjudice is essentially a shortcut, and I know that’s how our mind works. But it should be common knowledge by now that this shortcut holds a few pretty bad traps. To blindly walk into these traps again and again is just not very clever. ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Sanchez](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e19adc/32.png) [@Rick\_Sanchez](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Sanchez)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2017, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islamophobia-follows-from-observing-islam-majority-nations/779229/173 "2017-02-18T22:49:10Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > I made no false equivalency. Then why bring up Matthew Shepard? It’s clear **BlinkyandPinky** is talking about the **legal** oppression of gays in certain Islamic countries, an oppression justified in explicitly theocratic terms. Why bring up Matthew Shepard? > [@Hiker](#): > > That is true and far be it from me to defend the Islamist stance on LGBT rights. But to tell the whole story I think it is worth mentioning that homosexual activity also carries a penalty of up to life in prison in Christian majority nations such as Tanzania or Uganda. The latter even saw a move to introduce the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality” as recently as 2009 and that was only turned down after a lengthy debate and much foreign pressure. True. And again, the problem is religion. If you read the Bible, you don’t find reasons to be tolerant of gays. But Uganda is not the United States, and to insinuate, as **Monty** did, that U.S. citizens should check themselves before daring to critique the official, theocratic oppression of gays in certain Islamic countries because anti-gay hate crimes sometimes occur in America is fatuous. ---
**Author:** ![Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/aca169/32.png) [@Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inbred_Mm_domesticus)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2017, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islamophobia-follows-from-observing-islam-majority-nations/779229/174 "2017-02-19T03:00:27Z")
> [@GulfTiger](#): > > Yes it is. > > But is bigotry always wrong, or does it sometimes have a practical application? Yes, it has the practical application of making a politician look like he is doing something by playing on the fears of one group of people against another. It has the practical application of weakening America’s identity as a welcoming place for immigrants. It has the practical application of preventing us from learning the major factors involved in predicting a person’s likelihood of acting on terrorism. It has the practical application of creating distrust of government among the targets of the bigotry. It has the practical application of creating fear and distrust between groups of people who might otherwise readily agree that terrorism is a problem that must be fought. None of this sounds all that great to me. For preventing terrorism bigotry is of no value. It’s an inaccurate and ineffective heuristic. Blaming all Muslims for terrorism and engaging in prejudice because of that belief isn’t effective because most of the terrorists/mass murderers in this country are not Muslim and only a very tiny percentage of the Muslims in this country engage in terrorism. It’s better to understand how and why an American can become a terrorist, no matter the kind, and use this knowledge to intercept these individuals before they can kill others. Although I could be wrong, adopting extremely conservative religious views, watching lots of ISIS videos online and suddenly having an interest in traveling to Yemen are probably much better indicators of a propensity for terrorism than simply the knowledge an individual is Muslim. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2017, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islamophobia-follows-from-observing-islam-majority-nations/779229/175 "2017-02-19T04:57:23Z")
> [@Rick\_Sanchez](#): > > Then why bring up Matthew Shepard? It’s clear **BlinkyandPinky** is talking about the **legal** oppression of gays in certain Islamic countries, an oppression justified in explicitly theocratic terms. Why bring up Matthew Shepard? Because you are incorrect that it’s clear BP is talking only about legal oppression. > [@](#): > > True. And again, the problem is religion. If you read the Bible, you don’t find reasons to be tolerant of gays. But Uganda is not the United States, and to insinuate, as **Monty** did, that U.S. citizens should check themselves before daring to critique the official, theocratic oppression of gays in certain Islamic countries because anti-gay hate crimes sometimes occur in America is fatuous. Again, you are incorrect. It’s the attitude in certain segments of society. And I certainly never asserted nor insinuated that Americans should check themselves before criticizing others. What I have consistently done, throughout my life, is assert that it’s wrong to pretend like it’s only “the others” who have the problem. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2017, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islamophobia-follows-from-observing-islam-majority-nations/779229/176 "2017-02-19T05:14:12Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > What “Muslim country” was it that a gay man was tied to a fence after being severely beaten and left to die there? United something-or-another? …[United Arab Emirates?](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_the_United_Arab_Emirates) OK, I know, but you get my point. You’re cherry-picking. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2017, 8:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islamophobia-follows-from-observing-islam-majority-nations/779229/177 "2017-02-19T08:39:46Z")
> [@Hiker](#): > > Yes, but that is because Israel is a modern “Western style” democracy which makes it an outlier in that part of the world. It has little to do with the country’s maiority religion. Discrimination against homosexuals is a cultural issue in pretty much all of the Middle East and Africa and it transcends the borders of religion. You would not want to be a homosexual in any part of that region. Singling out Israel is cherry picking. You could also say you’d rather be a homosexual in Turkey than in Uganda. And there are certain Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods and communities in Israel where gays wouldn’t be noticeably better off than in any Muslim country. Fortunately, those people don’t control the entire country. Yet. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2017, 8:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islamophobia-follows-from-observing-islam-majority-nations/779229/178 "2017-02-19T08:49:08Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > …[United Arab Emirates?](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_the_United_Arab_Emirates) > OK, I know, but you get my point. You’re cherry-picking. Again, incorrect. See post above. ---
**Author:** ![Ale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Ale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ale)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2017, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islamophobia-follows-from-observing-islam-majority-nations/779229/179 "2017-02-19T14:23:39Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > And there are certain Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods and communities in Israel where gays wouldn’t be noticeably better off than in any Muslim country. Fortunately, those people don’t control the entire country. Yet. Now imagine being called an anti-Semite for pointing that out… Would that help in anyway the people being discriminated against? I would say it does exactly the opposite. It does nothing to help solve the problem to shift the discussion away from it or dismiss any concern about it as being nothing but an expression of bigotry. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2017, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islamophobia-follows-from-observing-islam-majority-nations/779229/180 "2017-02-19T19:23:17Z")
> [@Ale](#): > > Now imagine being called an anti-Semite for pointing that out… > Would that help in anyway the people being discriminated against? I would say it does exactly the opposite. It does nothing to help solve the problem to shift the discussion away from it or dismiss any concern about it as being nothing but an expression of bigotry. I can point it out because I’m Jewish, and Israeli. If an outsider were to say the exact same thing, I might suspect them of being anti-Semites, and I might be right. Either way, there’s little they, an outsider, could do. It’s out problem, not theirs. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islamophobia-follows-from-observing-islam-majority-nations/779229.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islamophobia-follows-from-observing-islam-majority-nations/779229.md?page=10)