At what point are gays in the west allowed to react to Islamic homophobia in their own western democracies? At what point can we ask the growing, increasingly militant and assertive Muslim communities in our countries to realize that diversity and respect are a two-way street?
As the following article shows http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-24036301-fury-at-ken-livingstone-allys-drag-queens-ban.do the Mayor of Tower Hamlets, a heavily Muslim borough of greater London, is now hassling a gay bar in the area that has been there for decades. The Mayor is Lutfur Rahman, who was ousted from the Labour Party because of his links to the hardline Islamic Forum of Europe.
This is the same area where British gays are frequently warned not to trespass and beaten up if they do. Some 47 homophobic attacks were recorded in the area in a 12-month period. Indeed, in most European cities like Amsterdam, Paris and Berlin, that have growing Muslim communities and large gay communities, gay people are increasingly apprehensive of the Muslim gangs who go queer-bashing.
It is bad enough that Muslim countries criminalize gays (five of them have the death penalty, many others stone, lash or imprison.) Other Muslim countries where homosexuality is not illegal per se have high rates of “honour” killings or gays who “hang themselves” in their jail cells after the family slips the jailer a few dollars.
I know Muslim countries are not alone in persecuting gays (how many times will I have to repeat this in the course of this thread?). But it is a fact well known to gay rights groups worldwide that Muslim countries are among the most violent, murderously homophobic of a bad lot.
Fine. As a gay person I would never set foot in a Muslim country. I have enough sense to stay away. But when that same homophobic ideology that is Islam arrives in democratic countries and begins to impose its hatred on me, at what point am I allowed to push back without being called a bigot or (incomprehensibly) a “racist”?
Here are just a few examples of outrages against gays NOT in Muslim countries but in western democracies. In reading these, try to imagine what gays would be called who did something equivalent to Muslims in our society.
Belgium, 2009: a Moroccan Muslim faith healer who was called by parents to ‘treat’ their 18 year-old lesbian daughter is arrested over her burning death.
India, 2009: Islam battles decriminalization of homosexuality. Muslim leaders say “Homosexuality is offence under Sharia Law and haram in Islam,” To India’s credit, homosexuality is now decriminalized in that country.
Toronto, Canada, 2010: Gay mayoral candidate George Smitherman is the target of smear flyers asking “Should Muslims vote for him who married a man?”
France, 2009: French Muslim soccer team refuses to play against a team which promotes homosexual rights and has gay players.
United Kingdom, 2009: At City University London, the Islamic Society hosts a fundamentalist preacher, Abu Usamah, who advocates the murder of gay people.
United Kingdom, October, 2006: Muslims comprise just 2% of the total British population, yet they commit 25% of all anti-homosexual crimes, according to a report by reuters.
And here is my all-time favourite, from the good old USA:
January 30, 2011, New York: The new imam at the Ground Zero mosque (the poster boy for moderate Islam) believes people who are gay were probably abused as children and that people who leave Islam and preach a new religion should be jailed. (Child abuse? You mean like 9-year-old Alisha being deflowered by 56-year-old Mohammed, a fact fully admitted by Islam? But I digress!)
But when it comes to hypocrisy the first prize of 72 virgins in Paradise goes to the ground zero mosque organizers in New York who in August of 2010 complained that a planned gay bar next to the mega-mosque was insensitive !!!
As a gay person who has fought all his life for what we have achieved, at what point can I start pushing back against Islamic homophobia in my own democratic country without being called a bigot?