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News and commentary about the anti-gay lobby“Now you must raise your children up in a world where that union of man and box turtle is on the same legal footing as man and wife…”
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobbySeptember 9th, 2014
According to the Associated Press by way of the Guardian, the Gambian National Assembly sometime last month gave its near-unanimous approval to a bill which would impose a lifetime sentence upon conviction of homosexuality:
A draft seen by the Associated Press contains language identical to a controversial anti-gay bill signed into law in Uganda earlier this year.
In addition to “serial offenders” and people living with HIV/Aids, both pieces of legislation say examples of “aggravated homosexuality” include when the suspect engages in homosexual acts with someone who is under 18, disabled or has been drugged. The term also applies when the suspect is the parent or guardian of the other person or is “in authority over” him or her.
It was not immediately clear whether there were changes to the draft prior to the National Assembly vote.
You can see the full text of Uganda’s final Anti-Homosexuality Act here. The original bill as introduced before Parliament adopted several changes can be seen here.
The Gambian bill is reportedly awaiting President Yahya Jammeh’s signature. Jammeh, who came to power in 1994 following a military coup, threatened in 2008 to “cut off the head” of any homosexual he found in his country and promised to introduce legislation that would be “stricter than those in Iran” where homosexuality is punishable with death. In 2013, he told the United Nations’ General Assembly that LGBT people were one of the three “biggest threats to human existence,” along with greed and obsession with world domination. Together, Jammeh said they “are more deadly than all natural disasters put together.”
ICYMI: Uganda’s Parliament took the first formal step to re-introducing its Anti-Homosexuality Act last week.
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Nathaniel
September 9th, 2014
Well, he certainly seems to have two of the three “biggest threats” down. Who wants to bet he is covering up for engaging in the third as well?
Merv
September 9th, 2014
As always, it’s religion, in this case Christianity, that is at the root of our persecution. And, once again, the supposedly liberal Episcopal/Anglican churches in the developed world do little or nothing to fight their coreligionists in Gambia as they declare war on gay people. They should be ashamed of themselves, but they have no shame because they’re too busy congratulating themselves for marching in the WeHo gay pride parade.
Merv
September 9th, 2014
Correction, it’s mostly Muslims in Gambia, but same difference. Christianity and Islam are like the tag team wrestlers of homophobia.
Timothy Kincaid
September 9th, 2014
I don’t think that the Episcopal Church has much influence on Gambian Muslims.
And I know of no branches of Islam – including those in the US – that are not hostile to gay people (though I’d be happy to hear of any).
Merv
September 9th, 2014
Yes, I was mistaken about Gambia, but Episcopals/Anglicans have plenty of influence in Uganda, and it’s basically the same story as Gambia.
Nathaniel
September 9th, 2014
Timothy,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Fatiha_Foundation
http://www.glaad.org/blog/openly-gay-imams-serve-affirming-gleam-hope-muslim-lgbt-community
There are ripples of change. The biggest problem probably lies in the fact that most Muslims seem to live in theocratic or semi-theocratic governments that claim the laws of Islam as their own. Such rule tends to stifle not only LGBT people, but also any sort of religious dissent. (I am, of course, making assumptions base on my experience, and would be interested to learn if these assumptions are true.)
Merv
September 9th, 2014
Most Muslims live in theocratic countries because most Muslims support theocracy.
Timothy Kincaid
September 9th, 2014
Thanks Nathaniel
Priya Lynn
September 9th, 2014
“Most Muslims live in theocratic countries because most Muslims support theocracy.”.
I think that’s highly debatable. Certainly from what I’ve heard about Iran the majority of the population opposes theocracy and is desirous of a lessening of the strict religious dictates.
Merv
September 9th, 2014
A Pew Research poll in 2012 showed large majorities of Muslims in several countries supporting the death penalty for apostasy from Islam: Egypt (86%), Jordan (82%), Afghanistan (79%), Pakistan (76%), Malaysia (62%), Palestinian Territories (66%). Even the most secular majority Muslim country, Turkey, registered 17% support.
Priya Lynn
September 9th, 2014
Your pew poll shows a very wide divide from one muslim country to the next. As I said, its highly debatable that most muslims support theocracy.
Priya Lynn
September 9th, 2014
Not to mention that in totalitarian Islamic countries people are probably afraid to say anything other than that they support the death penalty for apostacy.
Merv
September 9th, 2014
Here’s a 2007 poll of just UK Muslims, so it’s unlikely they are afraid to speak honestly. Some key findings:
* 74% of 16 to 24-year-olds would prefer Muslim women to choose to wear the veil
* 36% of 16 to 24-year-olds believe if a Muslim converts to another religion they should be punished by death
*37% of 16 to 24-year-olds would prefer to live under Sharia law than British law
Do you see anything in those statistics that imply a politically and religiously moderate population of Muslims in the UK?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6309983.stm
MattNYC
September 10th, 2014
Not an expert, but from what I understand about the structure of the Islamic practice world-wide, there is no such thing as a “liberal” sect that is recognized (that are analogous to Reform Judaism, (American) Episcopal Church, etc.). Also, there’s very little room for dissent or “breakaway” Mosques.
Perhaps, Sufism at least has a softer approach, but I don’t know enough about it.
Priya Lynn
September 10th, 2014
Merv, I don’t see anything in those statistics of UK Muslims that supports the idea that a majority of them want a theocracy.
Once again, the idea that the majority of Muslims want a theocracy is highly debateable.
Priya Lynn
September 10th, 2014
And rather convenient of you to omit mentioning from your own link that 59% of UK Muslims would prefer to live under British law, compared with 28% who would prefer to live under Sharia law. Puts the lie to your whole claim.
Timothy Kincaid
September 10th, 2014
I think it’s probably fair to assume that those Muslims who either move to Western nations or who are born in Western nations are more likely to be open to Western notions and civil law.
So if only 59% of Muslims living in the UK prefer British law to Sharia law (ie theocracy), then it’s reasonable to assume the relative accuracy of polls which find that the majority of Muslims living in Muslim nations are supportive of Sharia law.
This is not to say that they all support a particular regime or leader. But as best I can tell, there is not much call on the Muslim Street for a separation of civil law from Islamic teaching and when Westerners have been foolish enough to believe so (e.g. George W. Bush), we’ve discovered otherwise.
Priya Lynn
September 10th, 2014
No, it is not 59% of Muslims living in the UK who prefer British law to Sharia law. It is 59% who prefer British law to 28% who prefer Sharia law, or in other words 72% who don’t prefer sharia law.
When people are being killed left and right on the Muslim street for not proclaiming support for extreme Islam its to be expected that you don’t hear much call on the Muslim, street for a seperation of civil law from Islamic teaching but that doesn’t mean that a majority of Muslims in any country don’t support that.
Further, the presence of extremist dictators such as ISIS trying to force extreme Islamic law on the broader population is not evidence that the broader population supports the imposition of that extreme religious law. Most are too afraid to express opposition and those that do support groups like ISIS may be doing so mainly because the resent the corruption and sectarian exclusion of regimes such as Iraq’s Al Maliki or the inability to create stability in regimes like Afghanistans Karzhei regime rather than because they support the idea of theocracy extremists seek to impose. The majority of Republican voters support raising the minimum wage, extending unemployment benefits and many other policies Republican politicians oppose but those voters still vote Republican.
These are not democracies, even the ones that supposedly are. They don’t have free press or freedom to dissent. In virtually none of the Muslim countries does the majority control what is going on or have the ability to express itself freely. Strong men control all these countries, including the ones that are ostensibly democratic.
We cannot reasonably know what any of the majorities in any of these countries really want.
Once again, it is highly debateable as to whether or not most muslims want a theocracy.
Priya Lynn
September 10th, 2014
And it certainly doesn’t follow and nor is it reasonable to assume that if 28% of UK Muslims support sharia law then majorities of citizens in Muslim countries support Sharia law.
Nathaniel
September 10th, 2014
I hesitate to mention, but I do think it is important to keep in mind that, even in a situation where the majority say they want theocratic/Sharia law, that doesn’t mean they all agree on what theocratic/Sharia law looks like. My hesitance to mention this stems from the acknowledgment that no matter what points might be quibbled over, the overarching theme is still theocratic, which all of us would consider anathema to us.
However, I think it is important to note this to highlight a number of points. The biggest is that Muslims are not monolithic. I find it sad that members of a distinct group, like LGBT people, can point to members of another group, like Muslims, and dismiss them on the basis of prejudicial assumptions (even ones that supposedly have statistical support). Further, the initial question was whether there were branches of Islam that were LGBT supportive. There are indeed a few groups/leaders trying to make this happen, and there might be even more individual Muslims that are LGBT supportive, or would be under the right conditions. This kind of goes back to the monolithic point – we just don’t know what any particular individual may be thinking.
But this also brings me back to Sharia law. I have heard many Muslim scholars claim that the Koran does not teach the killing of members of other religions (indeed, from the passages I have read, Muslims were commanded to be accepting, at least of Jews and Christians in their midst). Yet, groups like ISIS take the Koran to teach the opposite of this. If we were to survey those that feel a theocratic government is the way to go, and ask them what that would look like, I’m sure you would find a great diversity of answers, just as if you asked individual Christianists the same thing. ISIS, etc. are not representative of mainstream Islam; even if mainstream Islam were as conservative as some of us think, ISIS is far to the right of that (actually, a two dimensional scale seems a poor measure, since a true conservative would like to see a theocracy as it was and is commanded to be, not some totalitarian BS dressed up in the language of Islam – almost like how Communist China is not an example of how communism is supposed to be – but then I risk straying into “no true Scotsman” territory). And this is important to remember. Theocracy is bad, but some are worse than others. Assuming that a Muslim theocracy MUST kill non-believers and LGBT people while subjugating women misses the vast (potential for) diversity that exists in Islamic teaching. But, knowing that some theocracy’s have chosen these paths should enlighten us as to why it is difficult to get a handle on what the average person thinks in those areas. Indeed, someone born to such a regime, neither experiencing anything different nor suffering under those conditions, would have no reason to want to change the way things are.
Timothy Kincaid
September 10th, 2014
No, it is not 59% of Muslims living in the UK who prefer British law to Sharia law. It is 59% who prefer British law to 28% who prefer Sharia law
Very well. It’s 28% in the UK who want theocracy and another 13% who didn’t commit either way. Either way you only have 59% committing to secular rule and I think the point still stands.
For what it’s worth, you could probably find a good 10-15% (just my guess) of Christians in the US who would say that they would prefer that the Bible rather than the Constitution be the final rule of law.
Nathaniel,
Yes, we are making broad strokes. Sadly, there are no denominations or significant visible movements of Muslims who are LGBT supportive.
There are certainly branches who are more liberal and more willing to exist on a globe (or even in a country) with non-Muslims. And that should give us hope.
And it is worth echoing your point: “someone born to such a regime, neither experiencing anything different nor suffering under those conditions, would have no reason to want to change the way things are”, and adding: especially if they have been taught all their lives that anything different is misery and evil.
Nathaniel
September 12th, 2014
Timothy,
I suspect another 5-10% think the US Constitution is part of the Bible or would otherwise not be aware of a distinction between Biblical and Constitutional rule.
Also, I acknowledge the necessity of broad strokes and generalizations. However, this is not the same thing as what Merv was doing, which was showing polls that suggest majorities of a group supporting a negative, then dismissing ALL members of the group as bad.
Timothy Kincaid
September 12th, 2014
Nathaniel,
I suspect far more than 10% believe “the Founders were good Christian men who based the Constitution on the teachings of the Bible”.
It’s like all the idiots who see the word “Creator” in documents and instead of noticing that they deliberately didn’t use the word “God” think that this is proof that they intended this to be a “Christian Nation”.
Nathaniel
September 16th, 2014
Timothy, sometimes I wish this site had a ‘like’ button for comments. Your last one was spot on.
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