They run safe houses inside Iraq as well as supporting refugees in the rest of the middle east.

Whilst the HRW report is good news for raising the profile of the pogrom, only Iraqi LGBT is actually supporting people (saving them from murder) inside the country. But funds are scarce and they consequently have to turn people away.

To find out more, read their annual report which is published on their website.

Feel free to go to the religion thread to discuss the matter of religion per se, but this is a political and religious matter, and worthy of treatment here. Specifically, how can the US, which essentially handed the Iraqi people a democratic system without the wisdom of the US Founders, expect to rein in the influence of Islamic tradition? The answer is, the US can’t because it has little to no leverage on the issue.

A fundamental provision of the Constitution of Iraq is that Islam is the state religion and a basic foundation for the country’s laws, and no law may contradict the established provisions of Islam. There will be people that will take that as license to do many bad things that are contrary to basic decency as measured by US standards, including the violent repression of gay people.

The Constitution of Iraq does not permit the persecution and murdering of anybody, and there are clauses in the constitution that are intended to ensure freedom from psychological and physical torture, and inhumane treatment, but it will be specific laws that protect gay people, and those laws must be enacted by the Iraqi parliament.

Islam is both a political system and a belief system, and it will be difficult if not altogether unreasonable to expect that it can be made over to support a system of full human rights any time soon. Add to this the fact that the constitution is maddeningly vague and incomplete in places, and one can be sure that it will be a long time before gay people are protected in Iraq. The sad fact is that there is little the US can do about that now.

Thanks again Dubya!

Please continue the conversation here.

Buddhism has a long tradition of debate and questioning. Even the Dalai Lama publicly said that if Buddhists encounter scientific facts that negate their own beliefs, then they should dump their beliefs and adopt the scientific facts instead.

That being said, I’m not trying to make Buddhism out to be innocent — Tibetan lamas have a pretty violent and sordid history. But intolerance among most religions pales in comparison to what’s been happening in the Christian and Muslim worlds practically since those religions’ inceptions.

What’s happening in Iraq right now is nothing but a more violent version of what fundamentalist Christians are doing to us in this country in an effort to perpetuate nearly 2,000 years of sexual repression (not to mention anti-gay hate crimes here, which are unconsciously committed for the same reason). Christian, Jewish and Muslim religious organizations that accept and welcome gays are a very new phenomenon among a family of religions that has spent most of its history hunting down and killing us.

I’m not questioning anyone’s right to practice whatever religion they choose. If you want to change the minds of the world’s Jews, Christians and Muslims, then have at it, but let’s be honest: There is something at the heart of these religions — the idea of a jealous, vengeful, angry and punitive deity and the idea that there is a “One True Faith” — that causes this violence to happen.

I like Lilo’s point as well, particularly the point about learning what we can do.

I like Lilo’s point, about how this is another unintended consequence of the invasion of Iraq. I seem to remember that before the invasion gay Iraqis were rarely attacked, unlike now.

This is in contrast to pagan religions, which aren’t based on any kind of holy text, or Buddhism, which explicitly rejects fundamentalist thinking.

One of my favorite examples of how this is wrong, is from Joseph Campbell’s Transformations of Myth Through Time. Wherein he relates the story of how the Shaman of the Russian steppes were obliterated, not by Muslims, not by Christians, but by Tibetan Buddhists.

To lump in fundamentalist Islam with, say, Reform Judaism or American mainline Christianity is not only intentionally offensive but reveals a deep ignorance about all of the above.

I think until all non-fundamentalist Christian sects come out and publicly, and vehemently oppose fundamentalist Christianity; and oppose it as harshly as many Americans have publicly stated that Islam should do within it’s own ranks, then they are are guilty of the sin of omission.

Silence lends consent. Evil exists because good men do nothing.