Radical Islam is a great evil. It’s poison in people’s brains that conflicts with the modern world, with basic human ethics, and with cooperation with unbelievers. It has to be defeated.
There are ideas promoted by radical Islamists that are inimical to our peaceful coexistence, and that are sustained in a culture of hatred that leads people to kill. The father of the Orlando shooter, while claiming that it was not the place of people to take action, was clear in his othering of homosexuals.
He then adds: “God will punish those involved in homosexuality,” saying it’s, “not an issue that humans should deal with.”
You can also see this in a video Sheikh Farrokh Sekaleshfar, a Muslim cleric who spoke in Orlando and thinks it is right for homosexuals to die, although of course we must not hurry God’s will along.
It’s poorly plausible denial. Consider the logic: God is good; God is great; God hates and despises gay people; they should all die for their sins and suffer for eternity in hell; but oh, by the way, you don’t need to do anything about them, but God’s probably going to forgive you if by some chance you should happen to murder a few of them.
And so it goes.
It’s very convenient.
So right now the right wing is howling that Obama did not name “radical Islam” at fault in his speech about the mass murder. Hillary Clinton has been praised because she openly accused “radical Islam” and called for increased military action (she’s making me very unhappy that she’s going to be the Democratic candidate now). Atheists I know are saying that this means we atheists have to step up our opposition to Islam, often not even bothering with the “radical” part. We hate religion, right, so we should especially hate Islam.
This is where they lose me. It makes no sense.
These bad ideas are not a uniquely Muslim problem. We have an American problem.
Watch Pastor Steven L. Anderson, if you can stomach it, to see what I mean. Watch Pastor Roger Jiminez preach that it’s “great” that 50 pedophiles were killed.
If we lived in a righteous government, they should round them all up and put them up against a firing wall, and blow their brains out,Jimenez said in the sermon.
They are indistinguishable from the Orlando killer’s father, or any of the dime-a-dozen Islamist preachers out there. These are home-grown Christian haters.
Look at Scott Lively, who ran for governor of Massachusetts and has been responsible for exporting Christian hate around the world. How about Mike Huckabee failed presidential candidate and governor of Arkansas?
In that 1992 questionnaire, Huckabee also called homosexuality, “an aberrant, unnatural, and sinful lifestyle, and we now know it can pose a dangerous public health risk.”
The current Republican candidate, Donald Trump, is considered the most LGBTQ-friendly Republican — that fact alone should give one pause — and he has declared that he wants to rescind marriage equality. Last I looked, well-known homophobes Steve King, Jason Chaffetz, and Louie Gohmert are still in office, and not particularly at risk of being voted out. If I had to list all the anti-LGBTQ governors, representatives, and senators in office, I’d wear all my fingers down to little stubs.
We’ve had anti-LGBTQ legislation passed recently in Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas. It is politically safe to condemn and hate homosexuals in Republican strongholds; the Bible itself repudiates it; one of the foci of conservative religious thought in general is sexual purity, and America is most definitely a bastion of conservative religiosity.
And somehow, many atheists are able to assemble this idiotic chain of thought that atheists must oppose religion, radical Islam is the worst religion ever, therefore we must support the deportation of Muslims to prevent innocent gay Americans from being murdered. There’s a problem in the logic there. How can you sit stewing in this festering shitpile of of Christian bigotry and decide that this is the perfect opportunity to exercise your bigotry against Muslims? This makes no sense. Less than 1% of the American population are Muslim, and an even tinier percentage of that are the kind of radical Muslims who would kill for their faith, and you want to prevent homophobia by persecuting and exiling them?
Radical Islam is not the problem here. The problem is a widespread culture of hatred supported by the dominant religion of this country. And if you think it’s just religion that is the problem, you haven’t been paying attention: Richard Dawkins is hugely popular among the alt-right (although he does not reciprocate the affection), many of those popular atheist youtubers are neo-reactionary atheists, and the alt-right treats gays with all the contempt they also give to women.
This is a deeper problem than Islam. Using the mass murder in Orlando as an excuse to persecute Muslims is a category error — it is an excuse to completely ignore the fundamental source of the problem to find yet another reason to exercise your anti-immigrant, anti-brown person bigotry. Don’t fall for it. Before we deport generic Muslim people, your eyes should swivel to those nice white all-American homophobes who openly advocate discrimination and hatred.
And maybe we should actually take an honest look at what those generic Muslim Americans actually think. I know it goes against the stereotype, but many Muslims in countries like Iran and Turkey and Morocco and Egypt have been strongly secular, or at least in favor of tolerance and coexistence, and many of the Muslims who immigrate to the US are fleeing religious persecution, so we’re enriched for secular, non-theocratic Muslims. Glenn Greenwald does an excellent job of looking at the data on Muslim attitudes in the US. Did you know that “U.S. Muslims were more accepting of homosexuality than evangelical Christians, Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses”?
Similarly, U.S. Muslims are more likely to support same-sex marriage (42% support it) than are U.S. evangelicals (28%), historically black Protestants (40%), Mormons (26%) and Jehovah’s Witnesses (14%). Indeed, U.S. Muslims are roughly just as likely to support same-sex marriage as Christians generally (44%).
44% isn’t great, but it does say you can’t use these numbers to support deporting Muslims unless you’re also prepared to round up just about everyone other than atheists, Jews, and Buddhists and kick them out of the country (which, I’ll confess sounds sort of appealing…but it would still be a huge injustice so I can’t support it).
Greenwald also points out the international nature of the problem.
Both China and Russia are overwhelmingly non-religious and also vehemently anti-gay; to the extent Russians are religious, they are loyal to the Orthodox Christian Church. In Cameroon, Catholic Church officials continue to spew the most vile and inflammatory anti-gay rhetoric. A prominent evangelical multi-millionaire Brazilian pastor and Congressman with a history of vile anti-gay rhetoric, Marco Feliciano, yesterday attacked the LGBT community for “using” the Orlando massacre for “self-promotion” and instead said that support for Palestinians was to blame.
Read the whole thing. Then look at the popular media. It’s amazing how quickly and thoroughly all the news networks have joined in a common message, that the Orlando attack was perpetrated by a Muslim terrorist with connections to ISIS, while the white man toting explosives and guns to a Gay Pride event suffers no such labeling, while Dylann Roof is excused from the terrorist trope because he was only terrorizing black people, while Timothy McVeigh is just a patriot who got carried away.
Face the facts. The Orlando killer was an evil person who did great harm, but if you’re going to try to find the cause in his background, you’re making a huge mistake if you stop, satisfied, at the point where you learn he was Muslim. And if you use the fact that he was Muslim to ignore the wider cultural source of this homophobia to justify broad attacks on just Islam and on immigrants, you aren’t being a rational atheist: you’re being a bigot.
Despite all this data, the standard group of hateful polemicists who literally seem to devote their lives to exploiting every news event to attack Islam wasted no time yesterday – before any facts were known, while the bodies were literally still in the club – squeezing the horrific slaughter in Orlando to depict Muslims as uniquely hateful of LGBTs. Never mind that the suspect, Omar Mateen, showed no signs of religious fanaticism, was (according to numerous close sources) suffering from mental illness, had a history of wife-beating, worked for a major defense/mercenary contractor, had no known connection to extremist groups until his 911 call citing ISIS, and was obsessed with joining the NYPD.
And never mind that white Christian Americans show the same or greater contempt for the right of LGBTQ people to exist.
The opportunity to exploit LGBT suffering to fuel the standard anti-Muslim agenda was far too attractive to resist, no matter how many facts negate it. Try to tell LGBT citizens who grew up in North America, or South America, or Europe, that anti-gay hatred is an exclusive attribute of Islam and the scorn you’ll provoke – grounded in actual personal experience rather than hateful ideology – will be intense.
I’ll be more impressed when the politicians quick to jump on the anti-Muslim bandwagon, like Hillary Clinton, are as unafraid to say the words “radical Christianity” as they are “radical Islam”.
What do virtually all mass killers have in common? Gender. They’re nearly always men. They are sometimes Islamic, Christian, atheist or other, but they are almost always men. Why are we not allowed to say that the problem is not radical Islam, it’s not even radical religion or conservatism or right wing paranoia. It’s men.
Because we men control the media. And we also happen to be white and mostly Christian and mostly heterosexual.
So white Christian heterosexual men can’t be terrorists. They’re loners and mentally ill, and exceptions from general white Christian heterosexual male goodness. While if they’re non-white, or gay, or Muslim, they are of course entirely representative of their sick, primitive, perverted, violent communities.
Of course radical islam is the problem, together with the conceptual fellow traveller wahabism, it’s brother in arms radical evangelical christianity, white suprematism, extreme zionism, desert death cults, fascism, extremism of all hues and all other deluded, psychotic syndromes relating to sociopathic and psychopathic behaviour. A big basket of festering evil.
It’s almost as if the root cause is something more than which weird religious cult you’re brought up in.
Psychosis isn’t related to sociopathic behavior. It’s a completely different problems and people with psychotic disorders are more likely to be victims than perpetrators of violence.
This is the exact same script used by Christian gay bashers and anti-choicers, and just like we need to continue to pressure the mainstream Christian groups that try to frame their intolerance in a defensible position (e.g. hate the sin but love the sinner) we have to keep criticizing the Christian and Muslim groups that condemn the attack but fail to condemn homophobia. It’s not enough to say you condemn the violence, you have to affirm the LGBT community’s right to exist (CAIR’s statement is a model of what to do right).
“We hate religion, right?”
Which explains why there are many atheists that I wouldn’t want to hang around with on a bet.
It’s a very cramped and unattractive view of the world in my view. And the fact that many here will want to flog me for that opinion goes some way to justifying that opinion.
scottbelyea #7
What the fuck are you talking about?
Yesterday CBC Radio 1 Saskatchewan’s noon hour show, Blue Sky, had a discussion/phone in about the Orlando shootings. One of the people they talked to was a woman who had been involved with Saskatoon’s LGBT nightclub Divas for some 30 years, including being a bouncer. She mentioned that the club had seen its share of vandalism and other harrassment over the years, and that she had always been worried that some day someone would walk in with a gun and start shooting.
If it had happened you can be sure that if would have been some homophobic white guy, since Saskatoon’s Muslim population was tiny until the last 5 years or less, and the kind of Muslims that came here tended to be more secular oriented.
Probably should have used some term besides white, since many Muslims can be considered white. Non-Muslim perhaps.
Religion itself is a problem.
“God will punish those involved in homosexuality,” saying it’s, “not an issue that humans should deal with.”
At this point, I would
be glad if we could get that.
The bar drops lower.
Realized as I was typing it, my comment made a sad little haiku. Changed its format to suit. :(
Homophobia is certainly not confined to Islam. There was a narrowly- defeated proposal in majority- Christian Uganda to make homosexuality a capital offence. That was defeated, but a law substituting life imprisonment was passed. Christian Belize also bans male homosexual activity. The problem seems to be more to do with the influence of religion in government, rather than which religion it is.
I was relieved to hear this in response to Trump’s baloney about Islam:
true, diann, just angry and I should have chosen my words more carefully.
I liked Rob Oliphant’s response. From http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/orlando-shooting-muslim-gay-toronto-mp-rob-oliphant-1.3632244
As usual, beware of reading the comments.
I just left a longish comment on the gun control now thread, saying more or less exactly this: as an out queer person in North America, my fear is of Christian and secular homophobes, not the relatively powerless and inoffensive Muslims.
Reports are coming in that the shooter spent a lot of time at that club over the years, so he probably fits the “anti-gay pastor” pattern better than the “jihadi” pattern. If we’re lucky that could lead to intelligent conversation about the bad effects of religiously-motivated homophobia on religious gays. (We won’t be lucky).
There is a huge homophobia problem within islam, both radical and mainstream, that we should not ignore. To ignore it would be to sell oppressed LGBT people within islamic communities down the river by giving their homophobic confreres in religion a pass. The bigotry is real and harmful.
But the way to address this bigotry is not to isolate and disdain islamic communities and individuals, much less to browbeat and oppress them. If people belonging to these communities are made to feel that they aren’t welcome to participate in wider society at large, aren’t made to feel equal and valued and as though they have a stake in wider society, they will be far more likely to fall back on repressive and bigoted “traditional” attitudes as markers of in-group solidarity.
What desperately needs to be done is to make wider society tolerant and respectful and inclusive of both LGBT people and muslims. That way there will be a credible and effective counterclaim on the loyalties of those at risk of being influenced by specifically islamic homophobia – credible because it comes from a wider society that does not shun them and effective because it comes from a wider society that does not itself promote and tolerate a barely-distinct version of sanctified homophobia.
It is a mistake to presume that these people’s cultural attachment to islam can be ignored or dismissed, and it is also a mistake to presume that their culture is immutable and backward and cannot be changed or ameliorated. It is a much bigger mistake, however, to presume that it is only immigrant communities that are the problem, and that mainstream culture beyond them has no role to play in shaping their sensibilities and actions.
On one of these types of sites that believe that all shootings are false-flags to get guns from the government (sigh, like they’re in any danger of losing their guns to ANYTHING) , I posted the following message to snap their brains. I’d meant it as satire originally, but ya know, upon further reflection and seeing the christian religious nuts celebrating the deaths of the gays at the club (ugh!)…:
—————
I agree that the shooter shouting “ISIS” was clearly a false flag.
The guy wanted to kill gays on behalf of his CHURCH’s beliefs, but didn’t want to demonize the church.
So by saying the magic word ISIS, suddenly he’s now the example of the radical terrorism, not domestic bigotry, the entire debate frames around political policies, and the church gets off scott free because he blames ANOTHER religion for the attack. Think if he screamed out “GOD WANTS YOU DEAD”…then the churches are now on the hook for defending their beliefs against his actions, but he LIKES his church, so he simply blames another…and his religion’s enemy (which is also America’s apparent enemy according to the narrative) is the perfect patsy for him.
He demonized 2 hated groups while leaving his own looking clean. All with no more effort than a simple call to 911.
A perfect false-flag operation.
———-
Can we start calling the anti-LGBTQ bathroom law the ‘terrorist support bill’?
I will from now use that phrase and similar to characterize all bills , laws and proposals that support bigotry as pro-terrorist support which is what they are in fact!
uncle frogy
That’s like a straightforward version of official catholic doctrine, isn’t it?
+++
dianne
I actually know a case that is the exact fantasy version of what people believe mental illness looks like. A guy, suffering from psychosis and substance abuse gets himself a weapon and goes to a casino. The police is called and he pulls the gun on the police.
Only this is Germany and the gun was a gas pistol and the police officer didn’t shoot first and asked questions later. Yeah, gun control helps a lot…
Regardless of theism (any style), or atheism; bigotry, or anything else. The issue is lack of empathy. One oppressed minority attacking another equally oppressed minority is simply due to lack of empathy; failure to see the equivalence of the oppression the groups are experiencing.
Xian bigotry against LGBT is a form of envy. “why sympathize with one small minority? We’ll lose out status as the focus if everyone is distracted by this other small group”, they seem to be saying.
The problem is the ease with which implements of destruction can be obtained to express ones lack of empathy. To enact it mortally. Religions feed, and feed on, this Eliminating Religion is only one step; not the solution we’d like it to be. Even atheists can get quite violent. Theism is just one aspect of these events, not the cause. Maybe an encouragement, not necessarily the source.
Anyone remember way back in 2001 when there was a high-profile incident in Texas where police raided a house (sans warrant, IIRC) suspected of having “terrorists” in it and instead found two men having sex and the two men were promptly arrested under Texas’s anti-Sodomy laws? Because a lot of the people who are talking about how horrible Muslims are now were talking about how great it was that those dangerous men were arrested then.
I agree that I don’t think that religion or ISIS seems to have been central to this murderer’s act. He seems to exhibit all the traits that one finds in almost all serial killers and mass murderers, the majority of whom are not Islamic or religious, yet commit their murders anyway.
This man spoke to his coworkers of his hatred for blacks, Jews, Hispanics, women, and LGBT people. He was characterized as extremely angry and violent even at work: he’d kick the walls and slam his fists on the table, etc., about even small things. He beat his ex-wife so severely that she had to get her family’s help to escape, and fled her home without any of her possessions.
He was even a police buff, something commonly seen in a lot of killers, who apparently feel inadequate and want the sense of authority and power that can be gotten by fantasizing themselves as police officers. And, he had a job in that area, too, another common characteristic.
He claimed that he was a member of/sympathizer with Hezbollah (Shiites, who are the enemies of ISIS) and Al Qada (enemies of ISIS). The FBI investigated and found this was just empty boasting, another common trait of killers who try to make themselves sound more dominating and adequate.
Then, during the killing, he brings up the Boston bombers (happened before ISIS had formed) and then ISIS. Sounds like again, he’s just an angry, violent loser who wanted an excuse for acting out his violent rages and was mentioning anything that came to mind.
The Boston bombers were just such losers: they picked America’s policies in the Middle East as their excuse for not succeeding. The Santa Barbara killer was another angry loser, who picked women to blame for his failures. This murderer seems like he’d have picked something, even if he was not Muslim or had never heard of ISIS or any other organizations. He would have found something else to justify to himself his desire to act on his anger and violence.
Some of the same type of people will always be with us, even if ISIL and the idea of killing civilians in the name of Islam (or Christianity) vanishes from the earth. We can’t eliminate every reason that they may find to kill people, because they’ll always find something. We can limit or eliminate their ability to easily kill so many people in such a short time.
@microraptor, thinking of Lawrence v. Texas? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_v._Texas. That was 1998 and it was a response to what we’d call SWATting today.
Is The Core Of The Problem Islam?
NO
— Betteridge’s law of headlines works for this one, too.
@qwints- Must have been it. Guess I only heard about it when the Supreme Court ruled on it and thought that was something that had just happened.
PZ, I have to admit I’m not sure of the exact target of this post. Certainly there are Trumplodite meatheads who are ready to yell “deport ’em all” at the first mention of “Muslim.” (I’m dealing with some of them right now on another forum…you know, the type were if you dare mention peaceful Muslims you are instantly branded a terrorist sympathizer. Very nice).
When you ask “Is the core of the problem Islam?” which problem exactly do you mean?
Do you mean the problem of homophobia?
Or
Acts of Terrorism by Muslims?
If the latter, then even in the case of Mateen it seems certain views of Islam clearly had much to do with it – a homophobia born of, or at least fostered within, his Islamic beliefs. And a radicalization based on affirming radical
Islamic beliefs. That certainly offers much more insight to his specific actions than “angry young man with a gun.”
It seems for most of your post you are talking of the problem of homophobia. But…who thinks that? I mean, the people (on line and otherwise) I’m aware of who are thoughtful enough to think homophobia is a problem in the first place, certainly aren’t blind to the fact it exists outside of Islam! I just haven’t seen a single person, ever, say that the core problem of homophobia is Islam. The issue of Christian attitudes towards homosexuals have been in the news for years.
But it certainly does make sense to try to identify sources of homophobia and Islam
is clearly a huge source, or hotbed, of homophobia. (Just like Christianity). To point this out, and to point out Mateen
was raised in a Muslim family in which it is believed homosexuality is an evil, helps identify this. And someone doing this isn’t therefore denying homophobia in other religions, cultures or contexts.
You know quite well how awful the stats are on attitudes (and treatment) toward homosexuals are in most Islamic countries. In some cases it’s barely medieval. And even in America the best stats you can find are 44% for gay marriage – as you say, it isn’t great. So anyone who cares about fostering better attitudes toward the LGBT community clearly ought to be identifying sources of homophobia, and talking about not only “radical Islam” but attitudes among the wider Muslim populations who see it as sinful.
But, again, I’m just not sure who would care about the problem of homophobia, but claim Islam is the core problem, ignoring Christianity and other sources of homophobia. I do get the feeling that maybe some people are being strawmanned, where if they come out saying strongly “we have to look at homophobia in Islam” they go on the list of
“Islamophobes who think it’s just Islam that is the problem.”
re 31:
one of the problems is scapegoating all Muslims as homophobic murderers with Mateen as just an incidental operative.
in other words: seing that the murderer was Muslim and then concluding that Islam is what enabled him to go on a killing spree, so Muslim should be watched and deported and banned from entering the country.
While some passages in the Koran are very anti-homosexual, but it is not the only source. And hatred without implements is just hatred and not a bloody mess. Makes sense to prevent the distribution of the tools before addressing the hatred attitude.
analogy:
Pyromania: make matches harder to get so one can then teach the pyro to not burn stuff. Why leave him with a box of matches and lots of tinder with vague plans to maybe someday talk about the mania?
nietzschesbreeches, an author at The Ex-Muslim (linked to on Pharyngula’s sidebar), has a thorough and eloquent post on the phenomenon of the ‘regressive left’ that I think is relevant to this discussion. The lede-in is a discussion about FGM, but it applies to homophobia as well. It’s a long piece, but here are some important excerpts:
PZ, you’re being dishonest here. The news networks have joined in that common message because it’s the truth. He WAS a Muslim terrorist with connections to ISIS, however tenuous. The white man on his way to the gay pride parade is, to date, a mystery – we don’t know what he was planning or why. It would be lying to call him a terrorist. The news networks also discussed ad nauseum the idea that Dylann Roof was a domestic terrorist – a charge that even the Obama Justice Department didn’t ultimately bring against him. And no one – outside of a few wacky neo-Nazi groups, would ever label Timothy McVeigh as a “patriot.” That’s repugnant.
This is nonsensical. The “wider cultural source” of the Orlando killer’s homophobia is Islam. He’s not studying Christianity. He’s not looking to the Pope for guidance. And the wider culture in America has been more welcoming of gays recently.
In another thread I quoted perhaps the two most influential Muslim scholars today – one a Shi’a and one a Sunni – both saying homosexuality is an abomination and one of them calling outright for the execution of gays. A dozen Muslim countries have death penalty for homosexual acts, to include Saudi Arabia, home to Mecca and Medina, the holiest shrines in Islam. This is the “wider cultural source” he’s being influenced by.
No they don’t. You quote a couple fringe pastors who are obviously quite far from the mainstream of Christian thought. You know how I know? The very article you linked to said this:
And the anti anti-LGBTQ legislation you cite, as bad as it is, is a far cry from the death penalty. The facts show that while there is contempt among Christians for the rights of LGBTQ, only Muslims – who follow the teachings of their religious leaders – don’t want them to exist, period.
This is what you have to believe in order to reach your conclusion that Christians are either the same or worse than Muslims when it comes to LGBTQ rights:
Christians must ignore Jesus’ pacifism, they must ignore that he said “those without sin may cast the first stone”, they must ignore the Church leadership to include the Pope, who said “If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?” Christians wishing to murder gay people have to ignore all of this and instead strike out on their own, search for guidance in the Old Testament and ignoring the New, and only then can they find the guidance they’re looking for.
Muslims, on the other hand, must ignore things that Mohammed himself said, to include:
They also have to ignore the haiths.
Blockquote fail. The last three paragraphs are mine, and should not have been quoted.
Vaal, @31:
I guess you haven’t been reading the “Gun control NOW” thread? I appreciate that it’s become rather long, but yeah, there’s someone in there who’s been arguing that Christian homophobia is irrelevant, that the struggle for LGBT equality in the USA “in most respects, is already over”, and that the main thing LGBT people need to worry about now is Islam – and he was doing so at the time that PZ posted this.
And there he is…
Ah, yes, Saudi Arabia. Greatest material prize of WWII, jealously guarded by the US from any other power that might seek to influence it…Oddly enough, despite its being protected and influenced by the US for 75+ years, it has not become a liberal paradise. Must be because Islam is so perverse that it is inevitable that it will be oppressive, even with the influence of the great benefactors of the west. Oh, wait. It’s one of the most oppressive if not THE most oppressive regime, even worse than many the US considers its enemies. Completely incomprehensible, that. Almost as though the influence of the Christian US were a bad one. But that’s surely impossible.
What evidence do you have for this incredibly fuck stupid statement?
I know that we’ve already established that you don’t understand what “character of practice” means, and that you think your interpretations of other people’s scriptures somehow carry more weight in defining the nature of their religion than their own beliefs and practices, but… Have you ever heard of something known as “the Reformation”?
I’d laugh, if there was anything to laugh about.
Ah, #NoTrueMuslim. Of course. In other words, I should be listening to all the moderate muslims out there saying that Mateen is not a man of god, he was not religious, therefore his supposed faith cannot be used against him. There, now he’s not muslim anymore, and islam has nothing to do with his homophobia! Must be the USAmerican culture, then.
mmark, are you actually using the story of Lot in order to argue that Islam is uniquely homophobic? You know that story’s in the bible, too, right?
mmark, #34
He had weapons, ammunition and materials to make explosives in his car. Was your brain on standby mode when you typed those two sentences?
I love that you think the cake thing is the height of Christian homophobia in America, when it’s actually psychological torture, child abuse and endangerment, and cold-blooded murder.
You have a very Sam Harris approach to Islam and religion. Keep reading and citing the texts over and over instead of seeing the diversity of lifestyles and perspectives that the 1 billion Muslims worldwide live with. The vast majority of Muslims who are homophobic are homophobic in the same way that mainstream Christianity is homophobic. They want gay people to have less rights. They don’t want to kill them. And just like in America, if there’s a massacre of gay people, they won’t care too much or try to erase the victims’ identity. Stop trying so desperately paint a group of one billion people like they’re some “other” creatures. The difference in homophobia in mainstream western Christianity and mainstream Islam is one of degree, not kind. And the difference in degree is much better explained by political structure, weak law enforcement, and lack of open and liberal education than it is to religious texts. If religious texts and teachings were the sole deciding factor in these things, the streets of Christian America would be lined with the corpses of all sorts of people.
So this is what a Dear Muslima feels like.
Yep. Lovely, isn’t it? Don’t you feel grateful to the enlightened cis men who informed you of how good you have it?
I detailed my evidence in my comment, including a statement from the Pope.
I never argued Christian homophobia is irrelevant, that’s a lie. My argument is that getting massacred in a dance club or thrown from a tall building is a lot worse than a Christian baker refusing to make a cake. The struggle for legal equality is mostly over, minus the areas I detailed, employment being one of those areas.
Where have I interpreted any scripture? In the two threads I’ve commented on here, I’ve quoted the New Testament, Jesus, the Pope, Mohammed, the Hadiths, and two respected Islamic scholars. I’ve also taken the Orlando killer’s intentions and allegiances at face value. The only thing I’ve done is put those all together. Tell me where I’ve inserted my own interpretation into that.
Fuck off both of you. First of all, Siobhan, are you seriously going to argue that the wider culture in America is LESS welcoming of gays than they were even a decade ago? Public opinion on any number of LGBTQ issues has made a huge swing in the right direction in the past decade. Remember that not even President Obama would support gay marriage in his first term, and now it is the law of the land.
And second of all, Dianne – what gives you the right to decide that I’m a cis man? WTF do you think I’m so passionate about this topic?? And you can’t point to a single sentence that I’ve written which can be interpreted to mean anything other than Christians are anti-gay bigots. But I’d rather be discriminated against than lined up against a wall and shot.
This is just fantastically wrong. There is no New Testament scripture or teaching that advocates or condones the massacre of gays in a bar in Florida, and there are no mainstream Christian religious leaders echoing and amplifying that scripture or teaching. Exactly the opposite is true of Islam.
While I don’t agree with mmark – I agree with Saad’s observation that ‘The difference in homophobia in mainstream western Christianity and mainstream Islam is one of degree, not kind’ – I think people are being too quick to 1) assign an identity to posters they dislike, based on absolutely zero evidence; 2) dismiss their opinions on the basis of that identity. It’s lazy and dishonest.
But beyond that, this kind of ad hominem attack puts unfair pressure on posters to disclose aspects of their identities that they might prefer to keep to themselves. After all, what other way is there to respond to an accusation that you’re a white cishet man than to tell people that you’re not? Your refusal to deny it is taken as an admission of guilt. This amounts to an invasion of privacy, and a distortion of honest discourse.
For a slightly different take on the shooting:
http://www.breitbart.com/milo/2016/06/12/left-chose-islam-gays-now-100-people-killed-maimed-orlando/
How many more innocent gays need to die before we admit that America, and the world, has an Islam problem?
I don’t mean a “radical Islam” problem or an “extremist Islam problem.”
Now, I suspect Milo’s free thinking might not be welcomed here at Freethought. With some very bizarre mental gymnastics, he actually adds the plight of atheist satirists, cartoonists and women to that of the gay community. What in Hell was he thinking?
And he made no mention of Christian terrorists. Idiot.
How divorced from reality are you when you think the extent of christian homophobia is “refusing to bake a cake”, and that more fundamentalist christians are somehow less homophobic than moderate ones?
Like, legitimately, are you from a different planet or something? Because last I saw homophobic christian parents are still disowning and turning out their kids, and we still get called faggots and get stuff thrown at us when we walk down the street.
Not to mention the whole “lol that sex worker/person in the bathroom with me is trans, better beat them up or kill them” deal.
That Breitbart article is trash. I did get a bit of a laugh out of this part, though –
All in support of Donald fucking Trump!
Vivec@50:
And the pastors and ministers who have openly stated how great and wonderful it was that so many gay people were killed in this shooting.
But they’re not mainstream, so they don’t count ™!
mmark, #46
How about in the Bible?
Are you a Christian? I can’t imagine a non-Christian being this obviously dishonest about this topic.
Oh and before you try to distort anything, remember, this is what you were responding to:
Probably because nobody back then had any concept of “bar” or “Florida”. There is, of course, the Old Testament, large parts of which are known as the relative about whom we don’t talk much unless it’s the few times in life when he was nice”.
There is, of course, no condemnation of abortion in the Bible anywhere but that doesn’t stop christians from outlawing abortion and murdering abortion providers.
rq
While this is an instance of #NoTrueChristian, it’s quite telling how mmarks thinks that
a) there is a true version of christianity (the nice, peaceful kind)
b) there is a true version of islam (the nasty, murderous kind)
@54
I doubt they’re a christian, if they legitimately think that that christians necessarily restrict themselves to the new testament. That, or they’re from a really, really weird sect.
Every dickbag homophobe preacher I’ve ever seen cites Leviticus and Romans when pointing to condemnations of homosexuality, Jesus explicitly says that he’s not there to get rid of the old law, and if Christians completely neglect the old testament they’d also have tho throw out the Genesis account and the ten commandments, which they obviously fucking don’t.
mmark, you sound like every other Islamophobic paranoid asshole. Nothing new in what you say. And for me, that goes back 10+ years. Nothing in the period has come close to showing Islam, to me, is a worse threat than Xianity.
I can show you a video of a bigoted Xian preacher telling the baldfaced lie that “50 pedophiles are dead”, showing the bigoted and fallacious attitude that gays are all pedophiles. Not the gays I know, nor is it really the problem he makes it out to be, as shown by statistics. All it is, is an emotionally laden argument. Just as your paranoid bullshit is.
Just because YOU have a problem, nobody else has to agree, other than YOU have a problem.
Keep your paranoid fears to yourself.
Saad@43
Some additional reporting on Howell. He certainly seems to have had some evil intentions, but the original police statement about his intent to harm LA pride has been retracted.
“Man bound for L.A. Pride with guns, ammo and explosive chemicals is formally charged”
“James Wesley Howell’s ex-boyfriend: ‘It didn’t surprise me at all'”
@mmark, I think stories like this: “Texas family raising money to rescue teen from ‘Bible-based’ gay conversion therapy camp” suggest the battle for equality is far from over.
here’s an example of Xian’s being so much more tolerant of LGBT than the Islam teachings:
mmark, were you aware of such attitudes, from the very leaders of the religion you think has gotten less medieval. They still have a little catching up to do.
Frankly I don’t give a shit about what mmark’s demographics are. Ten years ago the “friendly” Republicans weren’t criminalizing my bathroom use, so telling me things have improved because I can assimilate to a religous hetero-patriarchal tradition is a clear Dear Muslima for its sheer cluelessness. Heads, asses, y’all know the drill.
mmark:
Fuck off yourself. I can’t speak for Siobhan, but I’m a member of the queer nation, have been since I figured out my orientation, 48.5 years ago. I’ve been around for a while. I’ve been active in queer rights for a very long time, a part of very tight queer communities in more than one place.
The changes you’re talking about are legal ones. Do they matter? Yes, of course they do. We have as much right as anyone to marry, adopt, divorce, inherit, and sit with our spouse in a hospital as they lay dying. What you are not paying attention to is that while the fight for those rights has been a long one, decades long, those few wins are being drowned out in the rising tide of violence and murder we are suffering as a community. Here in the States, everywhere we turn, there are Christian assholes looking to legislate us out existence. Oh, maybe we can exist in the privacy of an armed fortress or something, but we better not be out and about in public, because if we are, we are taking our very lives in our hands. What about that don’t you fucking get?
Whether you like it or not, there aren’t enough Christians out there changing their minds, or bothering to stand up against the mega-assholes who are promoting violence against us. Every once in a while, a good person realizes they fucked up, and they make a difference, but it doesn’t happen enough.
Until you can answer why homophobia, legislation against our very humanity, and violence and murder against us is steadily rising, all over the fucking world, I think you had best shut up and do some listening.
This is an obvious double-standard, made possible by equivocating on “mainstream”. ISIS is not “mainstream,” it is highly and disproportionately to its influence publicized in the fearmongering, sensationalist media. And what could the kind of Christianity that can be appealed to on the floor of a southern statehouse to justify discriminatory legislation be, other than mainstream? Yes, I hear you say, discriminatory legislation should not be equated with summary extra-judicial execution, and that’s true. But I don’t think you have any idea what the mainstream of Islam preaches or what a mainstream Muslim believes. You’re simply willing to call extreme forms of Islam mainstream because they’re the only forms that get any coverage in the western media. Or, more dangerously, you don’t have any interest in learning what mainstream Islam is because ISIS makes a convenient bludgeon to use against people you don’t like.
Mainstream Islam is not enlightened, I am not trying to make that claim. I am claiming that recent advances in the social and legal status of members of the LGBTQ community have been made in spite of the beliefs espoused by “mainstream Christianity”. The stark difference you imagine simply doesn’t exist.
‘Sodomy is more dangerous to America than radical Islam’: Anti-LGBT preacher unendorses Trump.
You’re wrong. I do not quote ISIS, or any of its leadership. As a matter of fact the only time I mention ISIS is to reference the Orlando killer’s pledge of allegiance to them. I quote mainstream, respected Muslim figures and I reference laws that respected Muslim countries like Saudi Arabia have in place right now.
If you’d listen, I’m giving you part of that answer.
Are you seriously this clueless? The New Testament IS the Bible. It is the Christian half of the Bible, written after Jesus.
And I was raised Catholic and attended Catholic schools before becoming an atheist in my college years. I know Christian scripture and doctrine. I’m not the one being dishonest about this topic.
How dishonest can you get in one comment? Have I ever said that was the extent of Christian homophobia? Absolutely not. And I said exactly the opposite about fundamentalist Christians, read my comment again. Is twisting an argument to suit your own purpose the way you debate?
I find it heartening that no one here has seriously challenged my thesis. That gives me hope that people are, however begrudgingly, starting to wake up. I expected the abuse, serious ideologues don’t change their minds easily. But I do hope lots of people are reading this argument and taking note.
Libby Anne made an amazing post a few days ago that puts some numbers to the “harmlessness” of Christian anti-queer bigotry.
Yeah, the Catholic background was pretty obvious… In case you haven’t noticed, there are a rather large number of Christians who take a somewhat different view on scriptural matters – they’re called “Protestants”, they’ve been around for about 500 years, they make up the majority of Christians in the US. Many of them derive the character of their practice and belief as much (if not more) from the Old Testament as the New, and a lot of them layer on a whole load of made-up bullshit with no scriptural basis at all. This is why you can’t just point to the text and say “this is what Christians believe”. It’s also why your references to the remarks of the current Pope don’t carry much weight – a significant number of Protestants regard the Pope and the Church of Rome as the literal tools of Satan. Heck, there’s even a significant number of US Catholics who have decided that the current Pope is illegitimate, largely because of his more conciliatory stance on LGBT matters.
And here are some gif excerpts of a video (linked there) about the Alliance Defending Freedom. More of those warm, fuzzy, only-want-to-deny-you-cake Christians we’ve been hearing about.
mmark, #65
No. The Bible is the OT + NT. Facts. Get the fuck used to them. Give me a single reason why the Old Testament isn’t part of Christianity. Also, you are saying that all those Christians who cite Old Testament to oppose gay people and support creationism are NoTrueChristians because mmark says so.
And I’m from a Muslim country and have many relatives and acquaintances all over the world. You can cite all the mullahs and imams you want. That’s not how the reality of Muslim homophobia is gauged. Muslim homophobia is pretty identical to Christian homophobia: deny them rights, mistreat them in your community, show less concern when they are slaughtered than you would if it was straight Christians being targeted.
mmark, #65
Stop equating what shitty monarchies and repressive governments enforce with how Muslims the world over treat LGBTQ people. Stop mixing up actual communities of Muslims and how Muslim individuals behave with respect to LGBTQ people with Muslim governments.
Dishonest fuck.
mmark, I don’t understand why you’re insisting on this contest between Islam and Christianity. Both of them have fairly horrible track records on gay rights; both of them have also been majority religions in times of greater LGBT* acceptance. Quoting scripture and selected religious authorities provides a skewed view of a religion as it is actually practiced. You are relying on anecdotes and cherry-picking. (However, many of your opponents are doing the same. Nobody wins the battle of the anecdotes.)
If you want an accurate understanding of the presence (or absence) of prejudice in Muslim communities, you have to balance your understanding (such as it is) of scripture with 1) the lived experience of real Muslims and ex-Muslims, and 2) most importantly, actual statistics on attitudes within Muslim communities.
Unfortunately, real data is fairly hard to come by. Most surveys address one hot-button issue at a time, and lump all Muslims together in a single demographic even as they split Christianity into several distinct sects. The stats in PZ’s linked article, for instance, do not tell us if LGBT* acceptance in Muslim communities is consistently low, or if some extremely conservative communities are pulling down the average.
American Catholicism is weird if it excludes the Old Testament.
It doesn’t. A Catholic mass will typically have a reading from the old and the new testaments.
dianne #73
All the Catholic Masses I attended in Canada certainly did and Catechism classes included plenty of OT.
mmark seems to have had different experience
Why do you keep bringing it up to contrast against homophobic violence in (some) islamic countires?
Surely it’d be a more valid to compare the extra-judicial violence in Islamic countries to the extra-judicial violence in western countries, rather than saying “I’D RATHER HAVE SOMEONE REFUSE TO BAKE A CAKE FOR ME THAN KILL ME”, as if the latter isn’t a very real threat in the US.
As to the fundamentalism thing, you said that
This is laughably, horrifically ludicrously untrue, as even the most basic examination of Christian influence in US politics would show. Very devout, very homophobic Christians judge and oppress LGBT people constantly.
Given your comment about how a homiphobic christian would “have to ignore the pope” I trust that you are either unaware that the US is primarily protestant, or unaware that protestants do not respect the authority of the pope (and frequently cite the OT).
mmark is doing nothing more than a No True Christian. Christians who are homophobic are merely explained away as not being very close to their faith. Bullshit.
I’m done with this discussion. I hate using abusive language and feel sorry I did, but having to be on the defensive against the same exact lousy arguments over and over in every Islam topic is tiring.
Saad – let me get this straight. In trying to figure out whether the Muslim religion is special in the way it treats LGBTQ rights, you want me to ignore (1) The Qur’an (2) the Hadith (3) Fatwas or the opinions of respected Sunni and Shi’a scholars (4) and the laws of Muslim states. All of these things, btw, perfectly explain the massacre in Orlando, ISIS, and the general homophobia of large swaths of Muslims around the world.
Instead, you want me instead to listen to you, because you’ve somehow found the key to Muslim homophobia in your friends and relatives.
Ok, got it.
You and Dianne and Chigau have really low reading comprehension skills.
I wrote: “There is no New Testament scripture or teaching that advocates or condones the massacre of gays in a bar in Florida.”
You quoted this sentence then wrote: “How about in the Bible?”
I was simply explaining to you that the New Testament is in the Bible. Of course the Old Testament is part of Christianity.
Violence again LGBTQ people in many Islamic countries isn’t extra-judicial. I’m not sure how many times I have to make this point until people begin to understand. Death as a punishment for homosexuality is the policy of the Government of Saudi Arabia. It is that government’s policy because it is expressly authorized and encouraged by the Qur’an and the Hadith.
As much as you and others would like to equate Christian bigotry with Islamic bigotry, there is no comparison in the Christian world – or the Jewish world for that matter, Israel is extremely progressive on LGBTQ rights.
I don’t care what Christian denomination you are, there is no getting around the fact that Jesus was a pacifist and never encouraged his followers to commit violence against anyone. My assertion that the closer a Christian gets to his faith – the actual words of the New Testament – the less likely they are to commit violent acts, is absolutely true. And the opposite is true of Islam.
This does not mean I’m pulling a No True Christian, Saad, the Bible is written down and has been for a while. If any church teaches that Jesus encouraged his disciples to slay all gay people, I could rightly say that they are not being true Christians because I can look at the words and see what is written there for myself. I understand there are denominations that take a harder line on homosexuality than others, I’m simply pointing out the fact that Christians who wish to commit violence against homosexuals will find no guidance in the New Testament, they will find no guidance in the mainstream teachings of the church, and they will find no guidance in the sayings of mainstream church leaders. Once again, the opposite is true of Islam.
Mmark, still showing your Islamophobia, and your inability to see to that Xianity is replete with condemnation of homosexuality. You sound like a Xian apologist, doing a typically bad job. You say nothing to make any rational person change their minds.
You have an irrational problem with Islam. I don’t and won’t have to share your problem. I don’t even have to pay attention to it, other than to laugh at its idiocy, irrationality, and paranoia.
Bwahahahahahaha
Can you support that assertion with any evidence or data?
mmark
Are you still a atheist?
How many politicians have to attend a “kill the gays” preacher for him to be considered mainstream? Because is a thing that consistently happens.
Further, there are many Islamic countries where this is not an issue. If we’re going to use Saudi Arabia (a country consistently criticized by everyone to the left of trump, to the point where its draconian laws are a cultural meme and a stock joke) as a representative of Islamic countries, can I use Uganda and Russia as a representative of Christian countries? Because we’re looking pretty tied in terms of Human rights abuses in that case.
Here’s a good article from a queer Afghan ex muslim woman
mmark @ 77 –
Um, reading you, mmark, I don’t think it’s Saad, Dianne, and Chigau who have reading comprehension problems, I think you have some difficulty expressing yourself. You say something (which I interpret exactly as Saad, Dianne, and Chigau have done) and then claim you said something quite different. Even after your explanations, I’m still unclear what you mean. And I’m a teacher/translator in Russia. Usually, I can get some gist but you’re kind of all over the place.
The Kenyan High Court has upheld the legality of anal exams to prove homosexuality (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/16/kenya-upholds-use-of-anal-exam-to-determine-sexual-orientation). Homosexual acts that can result in up to a 14 year prison sentence. I am sure it has nothing to do with Christianity though. Sure, 82% of Kenyans are Christian, and Christian lobby groups applaud anti-gay decisions, and mixing anti-gay rhetoric and evangelical Christianity has been a very successful political formula, but I am sure it has nothing to do with Christianity.
Thank you for the link Giliell, it is a good article.
Super. I was wondering if I’d be labeled an Islamophobe – the last refuge of those losing an argument. If it is Islamophobia to quote Muslim scripture, quote Muslim religious leaders, and quote the laws of countries like Saudi Arabia, then I plead guilty. And then we need to find a new word, because Islamophobia has lost all meaning.
Name a few of those preachers and politicians. I’m not aware of any (which doesn’t mean they don’t exist).
Name an Islamic country – one governed by sharia law – where gays are afforded the same civil rights as heterosexuals. In your research you’ll find places like Albania and Turkey come the closest (even though they’re not governed by sharia). These are signs of hope, of course, that Islamic societies in the future can welcome LGBTQ groups. But to say that “this is not an issue” in even those countries is wrong.
Furthermore – you don’t get to use Uganda and Russia as representative of Christian countries. Why? First of all, the former Soviet Union was famously atheistic and the current Russian government has no religious affiliation. Neither does the Ugandan government, although the majority of people in both countries identify as Christian. In other words, neither government claims to be governed by religion, neither government models its policies and laws based on the opinions of religious scholars, and neither government, as far as I can tell, pledges its allegiance to a specific religion. I haven’t seen any Ugandan government documents, but I doubt they have, at the top of them, a testament to Jesus or Moses or whomever (every Muslim country I’ve visited includes an exhortation to Allah at the beginning of most, if not all, government documents. I will also say that I’ve not been in either Russia or Uganda, so my understanding of their internal mechanisms are internet deep).
In other words, you don’t get to claim Uganda and Russia as representative of Christian countries because they’re not. You could claim the US or the UK or Germany (to name a few) but even here the differences with most Muslim countries stand out – religion is separated from the government (although not officially in the UK) and the latter does not have to rigidly conform to the whims of the former. In most Muslim countries there is little to no separation. Laws, for the most part, don’t become laws unless they conform with the Muslim faith.
You said:
Kevin Swanson, and Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee, and Bobby Jindal respectively.
You said:
Putin finds an ally in resurgent Russian Orthodox Church
You said:
Who’s Helping Finance Uganda’s ‘Kill the Gays’ Bill? You Are
Also, does Pat Robertson count as mainstream? He rakes in millions of dollars in donations and has had a mainstream Christian television show for decades, and and he’s among the numerous preachers celebrating the orlando shooting, saying “I think for those of us who disagree with some of [the left’s] policies, the best thing to do is to sit on the sidelines and let [muslims and homosexuals] kill themselves.”
Before I start, fuck you for making me appear like I’m defending these Christian assholes. They’re guilty of many things but not murder or incitement to murder.
You named three politicians but only one pastor – who doesn’t, in any of the links (or in the links on the pages you linked to) ever say “kill the gays.” The closest he comes is when he says “I think if we’re going to have a halfway decent, stable society, much like what the pilgrims had…we’re going to have to get back to biblical law.” Rightwingwatch then infers from there that he advocates a return to pilgrim law which carried the death penalty for homosexuality.
Now, he’s obviously a dangerous loon and a toxic asshole, but even this guy doesn’t appear to be extolling his followers to round up LGBTQ people and kill them (which, again for umpteenth time, would go against everything written in the New Testament about his supposed savior). Ditto for Pat Robertson. As abhorrent as what he said is, he’s not telling his listeners to become actively involved in killing homosexuals.
So you’re helping to make my point here (and I’m sure this will be misconstrued by almost everyone) which is that while both Islam and Christianity have horrific views on LGBTQ issues, in only one of those religions are followers extolled by the sacred texts, mainstream religious leaders, and central governments who purport to operate within religious law, to kill the people who engage in that conduct.
And are you seriously trying to suggest that the links you provided about Russia and Uganda make your point? You can just admit you are wrong and that there is a large distinction between a nation governed by Islam and sharia law and a nation made up of mostly Christians.
Here’s a quote from the article you linked to about Uganda:
So…they’re not mainstream? Your argument is that they are.
Also:
If Uganda was representative of Christian nations – as you’d like it to be – they wouldn’t have to “use” this made up issue to “distract” people from anything. It would be their religious duty to enact fucked up legislation. They wouldn’t need another reason. Muslim countries didn’t enact their draconian laws to “distract’ people from anything, they did it because those laws are based in their scriptures, and advocated for by their religious leaders.
Yeah you just defended Kevin Swanson, I’m done. Eat shit asshole, I’m done engaging with you.
Douchebag – you’re the one who put me in that position. I mean seriously, is this how people argue around here? I feel like I’m in the Twilight Zone…
“Less than 1% of the American population are Muslim”
around 70% of US citizens are christian.
how many gays killed by radical christians ?
how many gays killed by radical muslim ?
Just saiyen.
How big is your sample size?
Just sayin’
Also this
No Islamophobic bigot, your problem is that you fail to see Xians are just as bad, and they are the power group in the US causing the problems here. Remove YOUR blinders. When you wear them, you can’t argue effectively, as your analysis is incomplete. Acknowledge Xianity has a problem with LGBTQ, and quit trying to say who is worse. That shows YOUR problem.
I notice Saint Mmark has continued to ignore the testimony and comments of anyone who identifies themselves as queer. Maybe they’re such an expert on homophobia because they’ve been busily experiencing it. I’m sure that canonisation will come soon, Mmark, keep your mouth glued to the pope’s butthole.
If you don’t want to appear like you’re defending those Christian assholes, you might want to consider stopping defending those Christian assholes. Just a thought…
You’ve spent umpteen threads on this “yeah, but those assholes over there are even worse” shtick. It’s completely irrelevant. It’s straight-up whataboutery. Yes, those assholes over there are even worse, but, in a US context, those are not the assholes that people need to worry about. People are allowed to complain about adverse circumstances which directly affect them even whilst other people in other places are in worse circumstances, and absolutely nobody likes the sort of dick that keeps going on and on about the latter when they’re trying to discuss the former. We’re not interesting in playing Oppression Olympics here, nor is anybody else interested in riding your hobby horse.
“Look what you made me do!” The cry of abusers everywhere.