London Pride — Not!
On Sunday, December 10, 1989, the direct-action group ACT-UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) mobilized several thousand people outside St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York to protest the Roman Catholic Church’s opposition to AIDS education and the distribution of condoms. Of these thousands of protesters, a few dozen entered the church during Mass, and one of them crumbled a consecrated communion wafer.
ACT-UP’s incursion into St. Patrick’s became legendary, and in the minds of many Americans that one protestor’s act of desecration remained an indelible image, forever defining both gay and AIDS activism. Every gay person I knew was appalled by those protestors who’d entered the church and disrupted the service, not just because they were morally wrong, but also because their action could hardly have been more counterproductive. The Religious Right depicted gay people as enemies of religion; the disruptive actions by those members of ACT-UP only seemed to confirm that image. (In fact many of the people who acted most outrageously that day later turned out to have been devout gay Catholics motivated not by hatred of religion but — quite the opposite — by a frustration with Church officials’ views that was intense precisely because their love for the Church was so intense.)
In the wake of the assault on St. Patrick’s, gay people sat together shaking their heads in disbelief, calling the organizers of this idiotic stunt every name in the book — even some ACT-UP leaders were appalled. But I don’t remember hearing any gay person call the invaders of the cathedral anti-Catholic or anti-Christian. Indeed, if you went through the annals of the modern gay-rights movement dating back to the Stonewall riots in 1969, I suspect you’d be hard put to find any account of a movement leader accusing another movement leader of being anti-Christian. I certainly know that when I and other gay writers came along in the 1990s and called similar actions against religious targets ill-advised, the whole organized gay-rights movement came down on us like a ton of bricks, calling us self-hating gays, traitors, and worse. When I gave talks in churches about homosexuality in an effort to build bridges, icons of the gay community such as the late Paul Monette savaged me for “rub[bing] shoulders with … the church supper crowd of the Christian Reich,” which, in his view, amounted to “pandering to creeps … accommodation with the enemy.”
Okay, cut from New York in 1989 to London in 2011. The stakes are higher — much higher. The mosques in Britain’s capital aren’t just refusing to hand out condoms or instruct gay believers in how to have safe sex. (Imagine!) No; they’re preaching to their ever-growing congregations in that increasingly Muslim city what Islam’s holy books teach about homosexuality — namely, that gays deserve to be executed. This has been going on for years, of course. The latest twist — and it will certainly not be the last — is that in February the East End, a neighborhood where many gays live but that is fast becoming a Muslim enclave, began being papered with stickers. They depicted a rainbow flag placed within a black circle and crossed out by a diagonal black line on which were printed the words “Gay free zone.” And they featured two quotations from the Koran. One of them read: “Arise and warn.” The other: “And fear Allah; verily Allah is severe in punishment.”
Now, this could be dismissed as a nasty prank by some isolated, harmless jerk with too much time on his hands. But to do that would be dangerous. For the sentiments expressed on those stickers are widespread among Muslims in the East End, and indeed among Muslims throughout London, Britain, and Europe generally. It’s no coincidence that as the East End has become more Muslim, the number of gay-bashings has risen sharply and steadily. Not to respond in some way to this latest provocation, then, would be a show of weakness and of fear, and an invitation to push harder. Here’s one way to look at it. Let’s say a heavily gay neighborhood in the U.S., like West Hollywood or the Castro in San Francisco or Washington’s Dupont Circle, had experienced a major influx of fundamentalist Christians in recent years. Let’s say the preachers at these churches were known to give rousing sermons about the hellfire awaiting sodomites. (While countless imams in the West openly remind their congregations that their religion calls for the execution of gays, not even the most extreme fundamentalist Christian — not even Fred “God Hates Fags” Phelps — preaches such a message.) And let’s say that stickers declaring the neighborhood gay-free and citing anti-gay Bible quotes suddenly began appearing on lampposts and mailboxes. What would happen?
Sounds like gays are acting like Leftist/Progressive/Liberal Jews.
Keep in mind, the Nazis murdered gays as well as Jews & Islam is no different.
Terry,
The “Nazis murdered gays” meme is historically misleading. Hitler is widely reputed to have been gay – and not just by historians looking to discredit him. Ernst Rohm (leader of the Storm Troopers) was known to be gay, and it turns out Rudolf Hess was as well.
Gays were targeted because many of them were affiliated with Marxist groups (note that I do not say “far-left” because the Nazis were far-left as well).
But he did not target gays merely because they existed the way he wiped out Jews for merely existing.
i believe gays are targeted by tyrants and mass murderers because they are easy “targets” in a totalitarian assault (gays account for 10-15% of any given population)- so attacking a minority group appeases the mob and garners further control for the tyrant
im not a psychiatrist but it seems consistent throughout history that, as per your example of hitler, the tyrants will go after the very groups that represent a kind of “self-hatred” to themselves
perhaps hitler went after gays BECAUSE he was gay; and maybe hated himself for it
The number is something like 3% for men and 1.5% for women. Clearly the genes for sexual orientation are sex linked
This is of course not true and only a fool would believe ths. Back to the point of the article. Let’s hope for the swiftest implementation of Shari’a.
Another reason that gays were targeted by the Nazis is that being homosexual in that society was so horrifying that the accusation would cause you to lose all supporters. Duffy and Ricci’s Target Hitler: The Plots to Kill Adolf Hitler, pp. 37-39, describe how the false accusation of homosexuality against General Werner von Fritsch (who was suspected of being involved in a plot against Hitler) caused Fritsch to lose the respect of his fellow officers. Remember that homosexuality remained a tremendously shameful thing throughout the Western world until very recently times. Maryland, for example, passed a revised law criminalizing oral sex as recently as 1976.
Another student of revisionist history. The gays that existed openly (as today in Germany) were on of the first people to be rounded up and put in camps (we all know what came after that).
The “mentally detectives” were certainly the first to go. Then came the Communists, the gypsies, and, of course, openly gays.
I suggest you read “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” by William L. Shirer, the definetive tome of the title.
Many members of the SA were openly gay. When Hilter decided they had outlived their usefulness and it was time to purge them, their homosexuality was one of several excuses for their murders.
Eric Rohm was assassinated at Hitler’s direction. Not exactly a ringing endorsement of the gay-friendly nature of the Fuehrer.
Right on! And as Jonah Goldberg so skillfully proved, the Nazis were a fascist left-wing organization. So, as the Bible teaches us, there’s nothing new under the sun!
Lenin: Class-based International Socialism
Hitler: Race-based National Socialism
Obama: Class- and Race-based Post-National Socialism
Terry beat me to the punch, as he often does.
Gays for Sharia Law, like the Jews for HAMAS. What about gay
‘progressive’ Jews for Islam/ism? That is they are self-loathing masochists twice over. I once got into a big argument with a self-hating gay US Jew for Palestine (who worked as an HIV/AIDS clinician stateside) in Tel Aviv. I actually personally knew a few liberal gay Jewish progressives (outside of Israel) and their love affair with Islam is as pathetic as it is boundless and wilfully ignorant, along with their hostility to Israel. A lot of gay progressives are very active in the vilification of Israel in North America and the UK (and not just there) – the ONLY country in the Middle-East it’s safe for them to live in and where their civil rights are protected and guaranteed, unlike their beloved Gaza and Ramallah, Jenin etc. That would doubtless include many of these East End gays. So they are actually being consistent here. They have for so long given their support to the Islamist war against the Jews, that when it turns on them, they turn on themselves!
What about lesbian progressive “Jews” for Palestine? That would be self-loathing and support for your own death and oppression three times over. Once for being Jewish, twice for being a lesbian, three times for being a woman (well if you insist on being a woman with her own mind, that can create all kinds of problems..).
One wonders what George Orwell would have made of it all? Dismissed it as science fiction, it is more surreal than ’1984′. In fact it’s more surreal than the fiction of Ionesco and Calvino. Truth is indeed stranger than fiction.
Your comment made me think about our current Middle East policy. The U.S. sat by and did nothing when Mubarak was toppled, thereby turning Egypt over to them Muslim Brotherhood. The U.S. is more than willing to bomb Libya for “humanitarian” reasons, thereby supporting Al Queda-based rebels and other Islamists. Something here is seriously wrong and a special kind of crazy–”self-loathing and support for your own death and oppression.”
As masterful a writer as Orwell was, I doubt he could have dreamt this up. Didn’t England learn from Chamberlain’s error? Appeasing bullies never works.
The English haven’t been taught their own history (a gift from the leftists to cut the people off from their own past) for about two generations. They don’t even know who Churchill was let alone Chamberlain.
“In fact many of the people who acted most outrageously that day later turned out to have been devout gay Catholics motivated not by hatred of religion but — quite the opposite — by a frustration with Church officials’ views that was intense precisely because their love for the Church was so intense…”
No, sorry. That’s not how people – Gay, Straight, Catholic or otherwise – express their intense “love” for anything. Committing blasphemy during a religious service is an obvious act of hatred.
Why would you even waste a paragraph trying to justify their actions? During the eighties, elements of the Gay Community were deeply in denial over the crisis. They would disrupt Mass at a Cathedral, but fight to keep the bath houses open? Come on.
Yes, that paragraph jumped out at me too. With respect, in an otherwise clear thinking article, Bawer is dissembling altogether here.
IF what Bawer says is true—AND I DOUBT IT—then the term, “devout gay Christians” is an oxymoron. Devout gay Christians would never desecrate holy space and the host in the way certain gay activists did in 1989.
I’m a convert to Catholicism. The Church is a human institution with all the foibles of humankind, all of us with feet of clay. So, for the record, I feel frustrated with the Church too, and with all kinds of other human institutions all the time. But, re even the institutions I quite abhor—e.g., Planned Parenthood—I’d never behave in the depraved way that some gay activists did at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. For Bawer—whose overall thesis here I entirely support—to suggest that these deranged individuals were “motivated not by hatred of religion but — quite the opposite — by a frustration with Church officials’ views that was intense precisely because their love for the Church was so intense…” is a profound insult—not only to truth, intelligence, and plain old common sesnse, but to devout Catholic gays everywhere.
Pax tecum, Bruce!
Correction: It’s “devout gay Catholics”, not “devout gay Christians”.
Thanks for this post. I wonder what your view is of feminists defending women wearing the hijab and even burkas in the West? I’ve seen them at Disneyland of all places. I think you are right in that many Liberal women and even gays do not accurately perceive the threat that Islam poses to true tolerance, being able to criticize those you disagree with while leaving them alone. Maybe you have seen the video of what appears to be Muslim youth (the way some are dressed) yell “I hate gay people” at a man after a gay pride parade?
http://www.bluecollarphilosophy.com/2009/07/feminists-are-ignorant-about-islams-threat-to-women-and-gays.html
As a Christian I cannot accept the idea that an open gay lifestyle is compatible with Christianity, I do think Christians need to stand against the rise of Islam in the West and defend anyone who is being persecuted as a result.
All I want is for gays to stop trying to shove their gayness at me by outrageous or shock behavior. I do not object to your gayness if you leave me alone and stop the stupidity (such as the California parades). Sharia practitioners want to kill you.
Yes count me in on that but you forgot the schools. All I want is that the gays stop promoting the gay lifestyle as desirable in our public schools. I understand that in California, the agenda is to start in Kindergarten.
I fully understand your point, I personally don’t think it’s pleasant for anyone to shove it in someone else’s faces, and this includes heterosexuals as well.
However, people should look back at history to understand that increased Islamic power is not something good for Christianity either. History shows that they placed Christians and Jews at a lower status in Muslim-Dominated societies, and these regimes were largely undemocratic. Of all things I really don’t like, I certainly do not like it when the system of a Republic gets chewed up, because that is definitely not good. I hope plenty of people who are homosexual or advocates get the message that Islam is the worst enemy globally, because to counteract it, we are going to need every hand we can get in the matter.
Er,hummm. Muslims seem to revel in sex between men and boys. They just don’t call it gay. If you know the Mullah (preferably in the way of the book) you can do what you want and have a scotch afterwards.
That is one of the great dichotomies of Islam, actually of Arabian culture (and Islamization is as much Arabization as anything else). There’s a whole chapter in Raphael Patai’s “The Arab Mind” on the subject. They find any number of ways to excuse it, but it is culturally prevalent.
Beastiality too. There’s whole sections that detail how one must kill the animal you had sex with and then sell the meat to the next village as your village must not eat the meat. Weird.
There is an inspiration at work here that completely defies logic, as you more or less point out.
How can rational people be so fooled?
The closest one can get at the moment, I guess, is that it’s a case of anything that opposes opposition to Christianity, or the West, is bad, unfashionable and beyond the pale.
Anything that does oppose Christianity, or the West, is good, fashionable and acceptable.
All other considerations pale into nothingness besides these primary requirements of post modern thought, belief and accepted decency.
Precisely. The same goes for Jews as well. Hate really can blind.
I have an uneasy feeling that a substantial number in the gay community will have to die at the hands of islamic terrorists before these badly misguided people wake up.
Many gays have died under Sharia law. Remember that there is no gay “question” (issue/problem) in IRAN.
Evangelistic christains may make Gays feel bad. Thus the illustration in this article. Islamists will make them dead!
It never fails to amaze me that Islam is treated as a “race” by the left. It’s just a religion, every bit as flawed as any other (possibly more so) but just a religion.
Progressive friends of mine who spout off about the real and imagined evils of the Christian faith will nevertheless shy away from directly condemning Islam, and will even go so far as to label anyone who does “islamophobic,” “racist,” or “bigoted.”
Does that make them “christianophobic?” Of course not. For the Left, Christian = “white oppressor” and anything else = “the oppressed.” That’s how they are able to justify these seemingly irreconcilable differences between their views of Christianity and their defense of Islam. Add to that, an element of cowardice– Christians, by and large, don’t fight back, and they certainly don’t fight back violently.
…and when they, the Christians, do fight back ( the Crusades, you remember them ), they are to be blamed as the instigators, not the defenders, for centuries. I expect the original incursion of what was then NOT Lybia, but it was Tripoli, by US troops commanded to by then President Jefferson, to also not have been a defensive but offensive. The meme seems to be that no matter what the west (Europe, United States, )does, whether to defend its way of life or life itself, is turned against us by not only our enemies but ourselves. The inmates truly are running the asylum when white is seen as black, up as down and good as evil. Good luck with all this for if we don’t turn current thinking around, evil will indeed triumph.
Coeurmaeghan in 29 Palms
Islam is NOT a religion. It is a full scale political system with a religious component. And so, it should be treated as such. Meaning, outlawed as was communism and fascism. Islam ‘preaches’ that all man made laws are subservient to god’s law as proscribed by Mad Mo. This includes all national constitutions. We don’t need this kind of ‘religion’ in our midst.
Oddly, those who would be the first to suffer under Sharia are the loudest in preaching tolerance and appeasement. Must be “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” at work here, but once their Christian and conservative “enemy” is finally silenced or put down, what then of their new “friend”?
Bruce you are one of a kind. Do you get harassed by your fellow gay brothers and sisters?
When a gay person is killed by a Alahu Akbar shrieking Muslim what then?
Theo Van Gogh suffered such a fate in the Netherlands and as the sense of an untouchable status which pc ringfenced Muslims enjoy grows it will happen here.
After all they’ve been grooming and raping underage white girls in the northern towns for years with no police interferance. Only now after public outcry is any serious attempt being made to curtail this.
Oh, but the Muslims here are different. For now.
“They’re preaching to their ever-growing congregations in that increasingly Muslim city what Islam’s holy books teach about homosexuality — namely, that gays deserve to be executed.”
And this is news? How “safe” is it to be gay in Iran these days? Oh, that’s right, they HANG gay people in Iran. Islam is no friend of gays and if they don’t know this by now then the gays are in deep, deep, denial. I’m just surprised that more Islamists in Britain have not attacked gays, like the Nazis did in the late 1930s. Hmmm, I wonder if they did that, the gays could prosecute the Islamists in Britain for a hate crime? And if the Islamists continue to call for the execution of gays in mosques, isn’t that hate speech? Seems that there is one set of rules for Muslims in Britain, but another set of rules for everyone else, including gays.
What so many on the left miss is that this is not a battle about theology but about values.
I don’t want to impose Christian theology — a requirement to hold a belief, attend mandatory worship etc. — on society.
I certainly want to impose Christian values — the separation of church and state, a moral code based on Do Unto Others etc. — on society.
Muslims don’t seem to be able to see themselves as fellow sinners. They seem to see themselves as holy agents of God which gives them license to commit acts of unspeakable cruelty. They seem to think God is so weak He needs them to bring about His kingdom through dishonesty and violence; while not understanding that in traditional Christianity, God is a loving father who in His love gives us the freedom to choose and allows us as much leeway as He can to work out our issues for ourselves.
The left, of course, rejects a belief in God and a belief that actions can have bad consequences hence they cannot even begin to mount opposition to Islam.
They seem to think God is so weak He needs them to bring about His kingdom through dishonesty and violence;
The premise that Allah would need brain dead slaughterers to carry out his Earthly mission is beyond absurd.
As I’m fond of telling any pushy Muslim I encounter in real time (so far that amounts to 2 people
) Allah just shakes his head in disbelief at all the carnage being done all over the planet in his name.
Well, the organizer was a founding member of EDL, a movement closely associated to the British National Party and manned mostly by football hooligans. But I guess Bawer doesnt think theres anything wrong with that.
Is the EDL calling for the executions of gays? I didn’t think so.
The EDL is NOT closely linked to the BNP – that’s rank propaganda. Also, any violence at EDL rally’s has always proved to be AGAINST the EDL members (think union thugs invading a tea party rally) and not CAUSED by them. Although the BBC will NEVER admit that!
The EDL are conservative people fearful of muslim take-over of their country. Nothing more – nothing less.
Sharia Law is a repressive, controlling, anti-Constitutional movement seeking to transform the West into something the Islamic radicals & terrorists can reshape into their own twisted image. Islam has no room for gays & the Left should acknowledge it before it is too late.
Not an uncommon reaction, (in some circles); it’s more convenient to pretend that big issues don’t exist, so that you can focus on trivia and delude yourself that you’re in the front lines ‘taking meaningful action’.
This sounds like more of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” nonsense.
And Christians are usually wimps who won’t fight back.
Christians loath combat. They would rather bend over backwards to understand and love their enemies. However, one shouldn’t bend so far as to exterminate ones-self. Sometimes loving your enemy means teaching them a better way, using whatever means are necessary.
This bunch resists learning with every bit of their religion. This will be a sad and difficult lesson to teach them.
The double standard Mr. Bawer describes is depressing. We seem to be regressing. That is, with privileges, special pleading and passes given on the basis membership in one tribe or another. A new aristocratic hierarchy of mandrin elites and grievance groups has replaced the titled or monied gentry of the past and rules apply in different measure to different ‘kinds’ of people.
Heterosexuals of every religion are pathetic on this issue.
Pathetic.
How so?
It goes without saying that Muslims, as they continue to extend the power and influence they seek throughout Britain/Europe, do not have gay friendly policies. Always ironic in that homosexuality is rather prevalent in, for example, Iran, even though Arachnidjihad and friends have declared “there are no homosexuals in Iran.” Or the Pashtun in Afghanistan and the in-built cultural practice of buying young boys from impoverished families. Or the reported exploitation of young boys in Pakistani madrassas.
So much for Islamic hypocrisy.
The destructive rioting currently going on in London is much bigger than Muslims. Unions/Socialists and general destroyers of “capitalism” are orchestrating the wholesale destruction in the streets, estimated at half a million morons taking part.
Have you noticed that for a very long time the rent-a-mob protests for ANY “revolutionary” groups for anything IN THE WEST. Softly softly police presence, no need to fear Tiannaman response.
Want a day out? An excursion? The chance to raise hell, make the “news” with TV and cell-phone photographs of every move? Today’s equivalent of yesterday’s panty raids or Easter Week in Fort Lauderdale. The Spring Break of the “best and brightest”/”elite”/useful idiots.
For the serious psychopath compassionates the bonus if they’re lucky that someone is killed or life destroying injured. Making the rent-a-mob’s day.
The protest to file in memory to regale the “young” when in middle or old age they can tell the story of their “bravery” and “revolutionary fervour”. Those days “when they were a man”. Without mentioning that NOBODY WAS SHOOTING BACK.
Desecrating the rites and symbols of safe targets out of favour with the “best and brightest”/”elite”/useful idiots is part of the fun.
AND they can get really lucky: the vacuous politicians pandering to the movers and shakers of the evening news, the feel your pain “Democrats”
and troops will pull out the plug to fulfil the demands. WHAT exactly ARE the demands ?
Heaven help opponents who stoop as low as to desecrate THEIR rites and symbols. Then its MOMMA/PAPA, they’re “not being FAIR”.
Quote:
Desecrating the rites and symbols of safe targets out of favour with the “best and brightest”/”elite”/useful idiots is part of the fun.
end quote.
Part of the fun, my friend, but central indeed to the cowardice.
The Bible supports the death penalty for sodomy, he contends. “I’m not urging anybody to kill anybody.” But the matter of factly explained his belief that homosexual sodomy should be a crime punishable by death based on his interpretation of the Bible. – This is a quote from Fred Phelps
This is a quote from Fred Phelps
Fred Phelps and his extended family are the crowd that goes around “protesting” at military funerals.
The Phelps’ clan comprises a whole new level of disgusting.
I have never believed that the Phelps bunch were for real. I’ll bet they are the well paid tools of/for the homosexual movement.
If one wanted to advance an unpopular agenda, how best to accomplish that? Bring on people who are soooooooo burlesque and obnoxious, that they become the focus and the story, and viola: “OH, THE HUMANITY!!!!”
However, I notice that it is Christian churches, not gay bath houses that are being burned down by the dozens since the 70′s, and mostly Christians, not homosexuals who are the victims of hate crimes here, and in the Middle East. Cassey Bernall and Rachel Scott wern’t any sort of “jocks” that the Columbine shooters claimed to be gunning for, especially in a library.
Not to worry, though, I’m sure when sharia law is established here, things will be better for all.
The Phelps are Democrats. Phelps Jr. was actually an Al Gore delegate.
Believe it or not.
Phelps and his crowd definitely do support execution for homosexuals, and have frequently demonstrated in opposition at conferences on reparative therapy put on by Focus on the Family. Phelps has stated in the past that he doesn’t want homosexuals to be able to straighten out (as some are able to do) because he wants them to die and go to hell, rather than become Christians. Phelps is well outside any definition of fundamentalist Christianity, pretty obviously. Of course, Phelps was, until the gay issue became his focus, a liberal Democrat.
Fred Phelps and Co are democrats who supported Al Gore. His hate filled group is not a church in any Christian sense…the man’s twisted theology is abhorrent to God-loving Americans.
Jeremiah Ch 23 v 22
But if they have stood in My council,
Then let them cause My people to hear My words,
And turn them from their evil way,
And from the evil of their doings.
Did not King Jehoiakim take a penknife and cut the message from the Lord and throw it into the fire?
How is this ‘cutting’ any different? Can no one answer my earlier inquiry?
(1) For actual practice of homosexuality among Muslims look up “Dancing Boys” in Afghanistan where men rent boys for homosexual activities.
(2) There are probably more homosexual men among Muslims than among other groups because of their family practices, including the lousy treatment of women.
@jojo “For the serious psychopath compassionates the bonus if they’re lucky that someone is killed or life destroying injured. Making the rent-a-mob’s day.
The protest to file in memory to regale the “young” when in middle or old age they can tell the story of their “bravery” and “revolutionary fervour”. Those days “when they were a man”. Without mentioning that NOBODY WAS SHOOTING BACK.”
So true. The metric no one seems to understand is that soon, very soon, we are going to begin shooting back…
I remain astonished that no “gay-rights activists” are willing to recognize (publicly, at least) that the Islamists have taken their playbook lock, stock and barrel from the gay-activist playbook: the bogus locution “Islamophobia” is most obviously copied from the bogus locution “homophobia,” and the push by Muslims for special rights under a “human rights” claim is likewise directly copied from the gay-rights movement.
Gays will find themselves being targeted by Muslims who are using the tools for destroying the social fabric which gays themselves pioneered.
I agree, Buzz. And the fact that they wrote this playbook makes their submission to its tactics all the more bizarre.
I simply do not understand why these people think that a Palestinian state would be a good thing, for them, or for anyone else.
I don’t know Buzz. I think there is a lot about Islam and its effects on society (or the destruction of society) that will make anyone with half a brain afraid of it, so being “Islamophobic” is understandable and is a term that should be taken back.
Anyone who enjoys the the freedom of movement, freedom of speech, the freedom of religion, should be wary of Islam. For anyone who is interested; go look at how multi culturism played out in the old Ottoman Empire, specifically the Balkans and how Christians were treated as second class citizens. Then fast forward a couple o’ hundred years and we have all the violence that kicked off in ’91.
I tried to answer you yesterday, but it appears my post disappeared into the ether. So I’ll try again.
Yes, there are reasons to oppose the march of Islam—but that does not mean one should be “afraid” of it. Or, alternatively, if there are legitimate reasons to be afraid of Islam, so be it—but that still makes “Islamophobia” an inappropriate locution. A “phobia” is a clinical name for an unreasoning fear—so if there are reasons to be afraid of Islam, as you suggest, “Islamophobia” is the wrong word. More to the point, “Islamophobia” is a word coined and given currency by the Islamists themselves, who a) want you to fear Islam, and b) want to minimize and denigrate legitimate opposition to their encroachments by suggesting that your fears, or concerns, or principled disagreements, are merely the products of a disordered brain. I think it is a mistake to permit the opposition to delineate the terms of debate and discussion, starting with the terminology used to describe their opponents.
“Islamophobia,” of course, was invented as a hermit-crab appropriation by the Islamists of the term “homophobia.” “Homophobia,” too, is a fraudulent usage: it was invented by gay-rights activists in the post-Stonewall years to provide a word which could be used to marginalize and dismiss political opposition without addressing opponents’ substantive arguments. “Homophobia” suggests an unreasoning fear of gays, with an implication that anyone accused of such a display was mentally ill, for that is what a “phobia” is—a mental illness. If one can get people to believe that one’s opponents are ipso facto mentally ill, one is relieved of the need to justify one’s political position. The inversion wrought by the gay-rights establishment in typing their political opponents “mentally ill,” after the many years in which the mental-health establishment had relegated homosexual desires to mental illness, was a stroke of political genius.
Anti-homosexual prejudices certainly exist. But “homophobia” as a political term is a pseudoscientific fraud which misappropriates quasi-clinical language for a political end. Likewise, anti-Muslim prejudices certainly exist; but “Islamophobia” is an even greater misappropriation of clinical language for a political end. I refuse to accept either term as legitimate.
From the late 1200′s until 1799 when Napoleon arrived, the 100% homosexual Mamelukes ruled Egypt, as “Muslims.” They perpetuated themselves by buying attractive young boys from the Caucasus, having them transported to Egypt, and raising them as homosexuals (so much for “gay from birth.”) The Ottoman sultan Mohammed II celebrated his conquest of Constantinople in 1453 by homosexually raping the son of the Greek traitor who had delivered the city to him. The Muslim separation of the sexes generates homosexuality. Yet who is most intolerant of gays? To liberals and the professional left, Islam is their pet religion. Good luck!
Well, there you go. Christian fundamentalists (and Roman Catholics, I assume) would tell you they hate your sin, but love you the sinner and would pray that you will go and sin no more. Muslim fundamentalists would just as soon topple a brick wall on your head. It takes very little courage to confront the former.
I have yet to understand the actions of gays, women and media types (ie Hollywood left, especially) concerning the spread of sharia cancer throughout the world. Do they not understand that under such laws they will be the first to go? Do they not understand that anyone who doesn’t bow to the sword will find it buried in their necks.
I guess a culture of “if I just don’t look at it, it will go away” has taken it’s toll.
Welcome to 1100 AD, but this time I don’t think the west has the collective will to act and I’m pretty sure God isn’t going to take sides because neither side choses to acknowledge him.
Your comments are spot-on. However – do not assume that OutEast and Rainbow Hamlets speak on behalf of more than a few hard left LGBT people. They are not elected – they are funded by local borough councils. OutEast and others have done their best to silence people, by labelling anyone who exposes Islamist extremist homophobia as being racist and fascist – the perfect way to shut people down.
I attended the oneLawForAll.org anti-sharia law conference 2 weeks ago, and it must be said, there was agreement from feminists that it is only the right wing press (with exceptions of people like Peter Tatchell and Johann Hari) who are speaking sense on this issue.
Even if there were no link with the EDL, hard left organisations and Imaan would have sought to cancell the April 2nd rally. It must be remembered that Imaan hada whole list of reasons for banning the march – one being Raymond Berry’s opposition to Sharia Law. Incidentally, there will be a gathering in any case.
It is high time a non-religious LGBT group for Asians was established. Imaan is for LGBT muslims, and gay rights groups falsely assume the group speaks for all people of Bengali origin.
Let us not forget ROY COHN US attorney who prosecuted and condemned homosexuals. Even after he was proven to be gay he denied that he was the gay partner in a homosexual encounter. He would come up with a convoluted explanation of why he was not gay because he was the dominate one, or some bizarre rant that I never understood. Like the voting Jewish block of NYC, and the gays of Europe, the progressive beliefs come first.
The UK seems to have a real problem with violent anarchists from todays news.
There has not been an explosion of violence against gays in the UK nor the US.
Gays are about 3% of the population, and the policy should be one of tolerance–
Not promotion of gay behavior
Not persecution of gay behavior
In the US 50% of male Black gays are now HIV positive
these are the major threat to gays
–HIV, antibiotic resistant TB, MSRA–
The incidence of these diseases among gays is increasing–tragically-
Why is everyone so afraid of the Muslims?
Sure they are prone to violence, the truly devout seem to revel in it. Fortunately, they stink at it – I’ve seen it.
Stand up to them and be ready to slap them down hard.
Muslims have never been good at war mate !!!
Trouble is lads, our own governments are the barrier to getting this lot sorted. We’ve no Charles Martel or Vlad Tepes anymore.
I’m afraid it’s a case of having to get worse before it can get better. The existing power structure will have to be compromised before Westerners can act in self-preservation. It’s coming.
I have a few friends in Amsterdam , who are gay.
Amsterdam used to be the most liberal city in the world and extremely gay-friendly….not anymore.
As more and more neighbourhoods are being taken over by muslims, Amsterdam is becoming a very gay-hostile city.
Gays are being harassed, beaten and terorrized on a daily basis.
One of my friends has been hospitalized for 12 days with brocken ribs and teeth, after he took a vicious beating from the muslim boys living up the street.
And yet, nobody seem to care, nobody dares to speak up or to confront them, nobody even dares to try to pretect themselves…the media is silent, the police are intimidated and the politicians do not want to antagonize such an agressive community…
So my friends have decided to leave Amsterdam, leave Holland and to move to Australia.
But they are going to have a bitter surprise, for the australian neighbourhoods are also invaded by the muslim barbarians.
Gay will soon have their backs against the wall,nowhere to run and they will have to stand up and fight for their survival.
The liberal policitians will not help them in any way, the media will condemn them and call them racists , the politicians will call them islamophobes…
And then, guess who will rise up and protect the gay community ??!!!
The conservatives, the ones that were ridiculed, harassed,and most despised by the gays.
Social conservatives believe that the government should not have policies that encourage homosexual behavior.
Some of them even believe that homosexual behavior should be punished by criminal law.
But no prominent social conservative on the gay issue (not even Fred Phelps) condone what happened to your friend, or to Matthew Shepard.
I am a proud member of the EDL (even though i have Eire tattooed in large letters down my right arm)and i would like to say this.A person should be judged by their actions in regard to their fellows not by who they love or what nature has decided what sex they will love.I’m hetro,big bloody deal,some people are gay,big bloody deal,i like to think that i’m a nice person but it has NOTHING to do with my sexuality,i’m me and my prick does not come into it,i am more than that(just as well really,it’s not very big LOL).To conclude,i think it’s a shame that the gay community did not come together on this issue.
same over here in berlin,
gays and transsexuals in kreuzberg are getting regularly a right old shaft from our imported turks and lebanese – but hey guess what – the relevant schwulen organisations cry wolf because of ze ugly nazeees.
it will do them a fat lot of good in time to come.
in the mean time i find it harder every day to feel for them.
This is what awaits Britain and Europe….take a look at this !
After you watched it, draw your own conclusion.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibmaiIGr56w&feature=related
It never ceases to amaze me how few people, right or left, are truly willing to stand up for the Liberty that Jesus Christ proclaimed when he came. “I say unto you, stone her, but let the sinless one throw the very first stone”.
It is only when we build a society that can see the “Other” as our brother that we can be truly civilized. Jesus Christ showed the way. Perhaps that’s why so many Gays and Muslime despise him.
I think that some clueless gay activists will still be warning us of the dangers of islamophobia even as their being strung up on a cranes by murderous islamists.
And the comments about Muslim ‘gay’ group Imaan are correct. they’re not in the business of promoting gay rights, but rather of deflecting criticism from Islam’s notorious homo-hatreds.
Excellent article. The main point is that progressives (whether they be gay, straight, environmentalists, etc) all have one defining philosophy/belief that overrides all others: the christian, white, captialist, imperialist west is the single, largest threat to everything. Of course that means the good old USA is villain #1 followed closely by its tiny brother in the ME, Israel.
The thought that another party say, Islamists, pose one iota larger danger to the world and themselves is anithetical to their existense. It would be like walking into a christian church and announcing that you have found salvation, and it has nothing to do with Jesus. You wouldn’t have many takers. In the same vain, these groups have convinced themselves that if they can just get along with everyone and help usher in the downfall of the capitalist west, evrything will suddenly become peachy keen! Ie, so what if Sharia is coming, at least it will replace the current structure which is much worse!!