Religion News Service reports that African religious leaders are very annoyed at Obama for telling them not to shit on gay people. Well yes that makes sense – how dare Obama tell good god-fearing clerics not to shit on people? Shitting on people is a god-given right of clerics.
In a news conference in Senegal during his three-nation tour, just as the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a federal ban on same-sex marriage, Obama said African nations must grant equal protection to all people regardless of their sexual orientation.
“My basic view is that regardless of race, regardless of religion, regardless of gender, regardless of sexual orientation, when it comes to how the law treats you, how the state treats you … people should be treated equally,” Obama said. “And that’s a principle that I think applies universally.”
Blasphemy! God wants gay people to be shat on, because he hates them. How dare Obama not know that?
“For religious leaders, in my point of view, this issue of homosexuality which he mentioned had really blocked the hospitality which the religious leaders desired to reserve for him,” said the Rev. Pierre Adama Faye, a Senegalese Lutheran leader.
Faye said he understood Obama’s remarks coming on the heels of the Supreme Court rulings. But he said Africa has its own reality, different from that of the U.S. In Senegal, churches and mosques reject the practice.
Africa has its own reality, in which it’s quite all right to shit on people for being gay, in fact it’s a religious obligation. By the same token the US used to have big chunks of territory where it was quite all right to shit on people for being black. Then after some upheaval and some conversation with elevated voices, people decided it wasn’t quite all right after all, and the custom changed. People can change their minds about the reasons it’s ok to shit on people; they can even end up deciding it’s never ok. The religious leaders in Africa could do that if they tried.
Sheikh Saliou Mbacke, a Senegalese Muslim leader who coordinates the Interfaith Action for Peace in Africa, said faith leaders have the duty to speak out, especially if outside forces want to impose their will.
“The subject of homosexuality must not be used as a tool to blackmail and coerce society to defy God’s command, which is more important than any world power,” he said. “We will oppose any manner of arm-twisting that threatens us to embrace it in our societies.”
That’s a horrible, hateful thing to say. Fuck God’s command. It’s not a command, and if it were, you should say fuck it. We’re not talking about murder or rape or assault. Those are all bad things, which people shouldn’t do; you shouldn’t “embrace” those things; but same-sex love and sex are not like that and you should use your brain to figure that out.
No doubt Sheikh Saliou Mbacke would support the South African Dutch Reformed Church which maintained- maintains, perhaps- that the subject of racism should not be used as a tool to blackmail and coerce society to defy God’s command.
In fact, if god did command anything and did not give a reason, then his commands are as valid as those anyone else who gives orders without giving reasons for them and humans have every right to regard them as unsubstantiated nonsense and disregard them.
Do these people realize that the religious beliefs they are citing as a reason to be anti-GLBT are imported or worse, were imposed on them by colonial or imperial powers?
@2
Unless you’re a cult member, all your religious beliefs are probably imported from somewhere, to one degree or another.
Why would the shitters care about the shitees? They’re covered in shit, so their opinion doesn’t count.
Christianity kept up the campaign against witches for 600 years during the Inquisitions, so the African preachers might be able to keep bashing gays until the 27th century. There’s new gays in every generation so a never ending supply of victims.
Malala has a petition for the UN , if anyone is interested.
https://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/stand-with-malala-end-the-education-emergency-3?utm_source=action_alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=28218&alert_id=HfPdhRezbA_RThkxnKvKi
Pretend people’s bigotry < real people's rights.
It is terrifying that anyone would think otherwise.
That totally pisses me off about African-Americans who somehow think Islam is somehow “authentic” Dude! You have your roots in AFRICA, a continent rich in the oldest human traditions. Learn about them!, and then teach me.
It’s the same with European descended Americans like me. The alleged “Judeo-Christian” culture is not our culture. When we rediscovered the Code of Justinian we went nuts. We loved these practical laws written by our ancestors. English Common Law predates the introduction of Christianity to England, and Norse law has been an influence too.
We all have had good and bad laws with ancient roots. Why do we have to pretend our laws came from a god alien to our cultural roots?