Stop Exploiting LGBT Issues to Demonize Islam and Justify Anti-Muslim
Policies
Published on
Monday, June 13, 2016
by
The Intercept
Stop Exploiting LGBT Issues to Demonize Islam and Justify Anti-Muslim
Policies
by
Glenn Greenwald
"The instant exploitation of this attack," writes Greenwald, "is part of a
more general trend of exploiting liberal social issues to glorify agendas of
militarism, tribal conflicts, and aggressive foreign policies." (Photo:
Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post/Getty Images)
In the late 1990s, Eric Rudolph - raised Catholic and affiliated for a time
with a Christian Identity sect - bombed abortion clinics and a gay bar,
insisting they were venues of immorality and evil. Last July, an Orthodox
Jewish Israeli attacked the marchers in the Jerusalem LGBT pride parade,
stabbing six of them, and one of them, a teenager, died of her wounds;
justifying his attacks by appealing to Talmudic punishments for
homosexuality, he had just been released from a 10-year prison term for
doing the same in 2005. Yesterday, a Christian pastor from Arizona, Steven
Anderson, praised the slaughter of 49 people in an Orlando LGBT club on the
ground that "homosexuals are a bunch of disgusting perverts" and are
"pedophiles."
Violent attacks on gay bars in the U.S. have long been common, as Sociology
Professor Greggor Mattson documented today: "the crime blotters of the gay
press have always been punctuated by attacks on patrons at gay bars and
continue to be today," including killings. In 2014, a brutal hate crime
against a gay couple was carried out by staff and students at a Catholic
high school. In overwhelmingly Catholic and evangelical Brazil, killing of
trans women is now an epidemic. The Terrence McNally play "Corpus Christi"
was repeatedly targeted in the U.S. with bomb threats and had to be
cancelled because it depicted Jesus as gay.
A 2015 Pew Poll found that U.S. Muslims were more accepting of homosexuality
than evangelical Christians, Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses
[...]
The instant exploitation of this attack is part of a more general trend of
exploiting liberal social issues to glorify agendas of militarism, tribal
conflicts, and aggressive foreign policies. Decorate the GCHQ headquarters
or the Tel Aviv city hall with the LGBT's rainbow flag colors and suddenly
mass surveillance and decades-long military occupation seems pretty and
liberal. Choose militaristic U.S. Presidents who represent social milestones
of race and gender and suddenly their militarism seems to liberals to be
more tolerable and even inspiring. Pretend that the war on Afghanistan is
about feminism, and aggression toward Iran is about protecting LGBTs, and
watch liberals melt with appreciation. Disguise anti-Muslim animus as
pro-LGBT activism and one can quickly expand support for a neocon mentality
and agenda into large sectors of western liberalism.
Depicting anti-LGBT hatred as the exclusive (or even predominant) province
of Islam is not only defamatory toward Muslims but does a massive disservice
to the millions of LGBTs who have been - and continue to be - seriously
oppressed, targeted, and attacked by people have nothing to do with Islam.
The struggle of LGBTs around the world is difficult enough without having
them cynically used as some sort of prop to bash a group that itself is
already being bashed from multiple directions.
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Stop Exploiting LGBT Issues to Demonize Islam and Justify Anti-Muslim
Policies
Published on
Monday, June 13, 2016
by
The Intercept
Stop Exploiting LGBT Issues to Demonize Islam and Justify Anti-Muslim
Policies
by
Glenn Greenwald
. 4 Comments
.
. "The instant exploitation of this attack," writes Greenwald, "is
part of a more general trend of exploiting liberal social issues to glorify
agendas of militarism, tribal conflicts, and aggressive foreign policies."
(Photo: Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post/Getty Images)
. In the late 1990s, Eric Rudolph - raised Catholic and affiliated for
a time with a Christian Identity sect - bombed abortion clinics and a gay
bar, insisting they were venues of immorality and evil. Last July, an
Orthodox Jewish Israeli attacked the marchers in the Jerusalem LGBT pride
parade, stabbing six of them, and one of them, a teenager, died of her
wounds; justifying his attacks by appealing to Talmudic punishments for
homosexuality, he had just been released from a 10-year prison term for
doing the same in 2005. Yesterday, a Christian pastor from Arizona, Steven
Anderson, praised the slaughter of 49 people in an Orlando LGBT club on the
ground that "homosexuals are a bunch of disgusting perverts" and are
"pedophiles."
. Violent attacks on gay bars in the U.S. have long been common, as
Sociology Professor Greggor Mattson documented today: "the crime blotters of
the gay press have always been punctuated by attacks on patrons at gay bars
and continue to be today," including killings. In 2014, a brutal hate crime
against a gay couple was carried out by staff and students at a Catholic
high school. In overwhelmingly Catholic and evangelical Brazil, killing of
trans women is now an epidemic. The Terrence McNally play "Corpus Christi"
was repeatedly targeted in the U.S. with bomb threats and had to be
cancelled because it depicted Jesus as gay.
. A 2015 Pew Poll found that U.S. Muslims were more accepting of
homosexuality than evangelical Christians, Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses
. [...]
The instant exploitation of this attack is part of a more general trend of
exploiting liberal social issues to glorify agendas of militarism, tribal
conflicts, and aggressive foreign policies. Decorate the GCHQ headquarters
or the Tel Aviv city hall with the LGBT's rainbow flag colors and suddenly
mass surveillance and decades-long military occupation seems pretty and
liberal. Choose militaristic U.S. Presidents who represent social milestones
of race and gender and suddenly their militarism seems to liberals to be
more tolerable and even inspiring. Pretend that the war on Afghanistan is
about feminism, and aggression toward Iran is about protecting LGBTs, and
watch liberals melt with appreciation. Disguise anti-Muslim animus as
pro-LGBT activism and one can quickly expand support for a neocon mentality
and agenda into large sectors of western liberalism.
Depicting anti-LGBT hatred as the exclusive (or even predominant) province
of Islam is not only defamatory toward Muslims but does a massive disservice
to the millions of LGBTs who have been - and continue to be - seriously
oppressed, targeted, and attacked by people have nothing to do with Islam.
The struggle of LGBTs around the world is difficult enough without having
them cynically used as some sort of prop to bash a group that itself is
already being bashed from multiple directions.
