Apparently “gay men” will be given priority in escaping Syria because of the risk of violence to them in that country:
My question is: what about gay women over there? I’m not questioning their refugee status to come here, because as women they’ll be considered a priority anyway, but if gay men are apparently killed in Syria what happens to gay women over there? Is it not mentioned in the article because women are given refugee status priority anyway, and not relevant to the article?
That is stupid. AFAIK homosexuals are not born with a stamp on their forehead, and will not have other relatively easily identifiable markers like racial, linguistic or ethnic differences do. And frankly, in Syria, being gay is something like problem no 117.
(And before anyone brings up ISIS executing “gays”, what you actually believe that was a determination made after a judicial trial and not just the excuse they decided on to kill that particular person? You have that much faith in the ISIS legal system?)
If they are like other historical movements, most anti-homosexual movements were focused on anti-male homosexuality, partly because female homosexuality is less threatening but mainly because there was less of a concept of female sexuality at all. They didn’t much care about women’s desires and actions with other women as long as they got married and had kids. I don’t see why Isis should care any differently, considering they will treat heterosexual women just as poorly like you say.
I know eh, how do you prove that someone is or is not gay, make them sing show tunes? If I were a straight male trying to get into Canada I’d show up in a dress & purse like that guy on M.A.S.H. I have to be “gay” to get into a safe country? No problem-o.
Homosexuality is a fairly recent construct. And a Western one. Most “morality” crusaders tend to crack down on whatever is defined as sexual deviancy… and same sex intercourse and relationships were one of those.
Which also raises the issue of why saying that ISIS is against gays is misleading, they (most of them) are not raised in Western culture, they are unlikely to have the same concepts of human sexuality. Their actions seem to be against whatever they define as sexual misconduct of which same sex intercourse would be just one sub heading.
… what?
The specific term was invented by a German in the 19th century.. As has been noted (for example here, many cultures, for example, Greeks, did not have the concepts which " correspond to the contemporary dichotomy of ‘heterosexual’ and ‘homosexual’". That is also the case in most of the world today. Hence the phenomena that you see of people who (often openly and without any outward shame) partake in same sex intercourse and relationships, sometimes exclusively, but will deny they are homosexual until the are blue in the face.
Please, note I am not talking about morality here.
Given ISIS’s hardline Islamic policies, sex outside of marriage would be a no-no. As far as I know, two men can not be married under Sharia law, therefore, sex between two men would be sex outside of marriage and probably punished as severely as rape, adultery, and so forth.
ISIS who have no problems raping women, having hosts of concubines and generally acting like a bunch of fucktards, all of a sudden have a textual commitment to legal principles?:dubious:
I am sure there are ISIS members who happily partake in homosexual acts, and justify it in whatever means they can think (we were horny is probably top of the list). Or do you hold ISIS to a higher standard in that they avoid arbitrary and capricious behaviour?
Well, it’s not exactly like you get born with a “Christian” stamp on your forehead, either, but we still give refuge to people fleeing religious persecution.
Two things, there. First, not everyone fleeing Syria is fleeing ISIS. How does the Assad regime handle homosexuality? Secondly, since when does ISIS need an excuse to murder someone? They seem pretty comfortable saying, “Yeah, we killed that guy because fuck him.”
No, he’s right. The concept of sexual orientation as a personal identity is a recent invention. Of course, there have been people who were primarily or exclusively attracted to their own gender for as long as their have been people, but the idea of “who you wanted to have sex with” as an integral part of a person’s identity is fairly recent.
Word wil be out already in the camps, grab the hand of the guy next you and prance over to the interviewers. Tell them how much in love the two of you are and voila, you’re on the next plane to Canada.
And this goes for bi and trans guys too.
But realistically, doesn’t this border on sexual discrimination?
ISIS uses different rules than we do to define allowable sex.
Under their rules, a man having multiple wives and fucking his female slave are allowable forms of intercourse. Fucking a woman he’s not married to or does not own is not permitted. As near as I can determine, not being an expert on ISIS. They aren’t as arbitrary and caprious as they might appear to us.
Even in the most inhospitable climates, there are gay communities. There are gay social circles, gay hangouts, etc. They may be deeply underground, but they exist in some form or another everywhere, even in places where it will get you killed.
The same isn’t true for lesbians. Women just don’t have the same freedom. They are forced into marriage and kids younger, and confined closer to the home. They may not have time to mix with strangers or even be alone at all. When lesbianism does happen, it’s firmly within the private sphere.
So while both may be seen as crimes against nature, male homosexuality is uniquely seen as a crime against the very structure of society. That’s not to say that lesbian sex is tolerated-- it’d be the same as any “deviant” sex act. But there probably isn’t the same push to find the lesbians.
The people who interview refugees are VERY good at figuring out who’s faking it. They are very long interviews, where they expect lots of precise details about names and dates and places, and these are questioned multiple times in different ways in order to root out inconsistencies.