Accidental or not?
 

Have a look at today's TV guide for Sydney (Bear in mind today is Sep 11th):

sooo, accidental programming Oops, or not? (SBS is our Multicultural Channel)

I'd say probably very intentional.

Probably intentional. Hopefully It's a good reminder that Islam/Muslim's are not the enemy.

They are if you're gay.

Not all of them.

Not all Christians/Catholics/Jews/whoever whose Bible/Torah/Religious teachings say homosexuality is wrong are the enemy either.

It's those who choose to act on it who are the enemy.

A recent poll in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer has it that the only group thought to be more discriminated against in America than Muslims are da gays.

And nothing helps the problem of discrimination quite like singling a group of people out and calling them the enemy!

Be that as it may GD, can you point out to me a non-MusIslamic nation that punishes homosexuality by death?

So does that make you the enemy, SM, to everyone whom the U.S. government defiles and kills and slights and maims and targets?

Huh?

Seems to me, SzcerbiakManiac is directing some ire at the general Muslim / Islamic population for the actions of their governments. Governments that are not even representative, as our government purportedly is.

So are we to blame as a people for the horrible actions of our government? Some might say, yes, since ultimate power in the U.S. is supposedly vested in the people. I'm being a bit sarcastic, but I'm asking SM his opinion on collective responsibility for government actions. Because unless all Muslims are responsible for the policies of their governments when it comes to executing gays, then Muslim people should not be considered his enemy.


IMO.

That's a defense of your blanket statement how? All countries where homosexuality is a capitol offense are Muslim therefore all Muslims are the enemy?

Majority Islam countries where being gay is not a crime punishable by death (I'm sure it is illegal in all these places but that is hardly unique to Islam). Bold means it is an outright Islamic state, italic means it is the state religion, all others are simply countries where the majority of the population is Muslim:

Afghanistan, Algeria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Brunei, Burkina Faso, Chad, Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, The Gambia, Guinea, Indonesia, Iraq, Jordan, Kosovo, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Libya, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Morocco, Niger, Oman, Pakistan, Palestine, Qatar, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Syria, Tajikistan, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan.

ETA: Whoops. Homosexuality is not even a crime in Jordan, Mali, Indonesia and Turkey. Homesexual acts have been legal in Turkey approximately 30 years longer than they've been nationally legal in the United States (that is, approximately 40 years as opposed to our 6).

Oh geeze Alex. Stop putting logic into arguments of the outraged.

But if you must, I blame Monica Seles.

In SM's defense, I have a knee-jerk reaction against Germans.

My ire is at the religion of Islam, the Muslim people who practice it, and the theocratic nations which are run by it.

Yes, we are. As a nation we elect our leaders and ultimately it's our problem when they fück up. And in the long run, we usually try to make it right.

We elected Dubya, Clinton, Regan, and Joseph McCarthy. But there were plenty of Americans who protested their policies. Point out to me one single non-gay person in an Islamic-run nation who has protested his/her government's treatment of gays and I might change my opinion of them being the enemy of gays.


All Muslims subscribe to a fücked-up religion*. Obviously, some Muslims are worse than others. I'm not suggesting that each and every Muslim would shoot me on sight if we passed on the street. But I am saying that each and every one of them, assuming they are following the tenants of their religion (and if they don't, they're not really Muslims are they?), see homosexuals as evil. Ergo, they see me as the enemy. And I see anyone as "the enemy" when they attempt to deny me basic civil rights. Rights such as, oh I don't, the right to live! Again, that's not the only thing I don't like about Islam, but it's significant.

Okay, but is there a nation that punishes homosexuality by death that is not either majority Muslim or an Islamic theocracy?


*No! Not all religions are valid. That concept is bullshït!

WOW!


Just, wow.

In truth, I don't know if the actual tenets of Islam are any more anti-homo than the tenets of Christianity are. Certainly, plenty of Christians point to passages of their holy text that they claim condemn homosexuality, and others disagree with those interpretations.

Is the same not true of the holy text of Islam? Or is it far more cut and dried? I confess I do not know, but I suspect the Koran is similar to the Bible, in that it can be used to "prove" any point under the sun.

I'm definitely not a fan of Christianity, but even nutbag "Christians" like Fred Phelps and his batshït-crazy family aren't out killing homosexuals or passing laws to make the state do it for them.

So gay bashing in America gets a pass from having any religious motivation?

Absolutely not. But are the gay bashers electing officials who openly promote gay bashing? Have any laws been passed which compel the state to "beat up the faggots"?

Looking at Alex's post above, it doesn't look like that's the case in most Muslim countries as well.

There are Muslims who do not hate gays, and there are Christians and Jews and Hindus and others who want you dead.

If you want a broad brush, it's going to have be broad enough to cover all religions. That's pretty much everybody. Unless you want to hate everybody who calls themselves a follower of any religion, I suggest you stop hating all Muslims.

I hate extremism of any stripe. Seems like a more worthy target.

Yes, because the minority of Islamic-ruled countries where homosexuality is punishable by death are known as bastions of democracy where, clearly, their governments represent the will of the people. They're also bastions of freedom of speech and assembly where people who disagree with their ruthless leaders often feel free to demonstrate against them.

Glad to know you think the attacks on 9/11 were justified since, by extension, the people in the twin towers are partially responsible for the instability in Afghanistan that our government played a large hand in creating.

If the governed don't like their government, they need to make a new one. It happens all the time. <looks at South America & Africa> They look to me like they're pretty content with the status quo. I'd love to read evidence to the contrary.

I think that's an awfully big leap there GD. Do we blame the Chinese butterfly who caused a hurricane in Florida?

I don't find hate any more palatable when directed at Muslims instead of gays

Clear, concise and perfect. Thank you.

I don't find institutionalized persecution of homosexuals palatable.
I don't find treating women like property palatable.
I don't find calling for an artist's death because he drew a picture of a historical figure palatable.

Neither do I.

I don't find that all Muslims do all of these things so I don't treat them as if they do.

However, it is nice to for once being on the side going easy on religion. I am curious if the citizens of Turkey need to be invading other countries to absolve themselves of responsibility for what other governments do.

I don't find any excuse for blanket hate palatable.

I not sure what you mean, but I'll take a stab—correct me if I read that wrong.

No. I don't think the citizens of Turkey (nor America, for that matter) need to be invading other countries.

Yes, I do consider Muslims to be the enemies of gays. But I am not suggesting we go to war with them. I think "enemies" can exist without combat.

Look folks, I'm not Emperor Palpatine trying to sway you to give into the Hate. I have an opinion you all seem to vehemently disagree with. So be it.

Your opinion is that all Muslims see homosexuals as evil. This is simply not true.

If your stipulation is that all strictly observant Muslims see homosexuals as evil, then your statement also includes strictly observant Jews and Christians. Therefore, those people are evil as well.

If you truly see all those people as evil, that is, people that do not deserve to live among us, or that you refuse to fraternize with, then you'll have to bolt your door, or live on an island.

In any case you are condemning many, many people, from many different backgrounds, with one bold stroke. This is called racism. It's called prejudice. If you truly think a full culture, a full race to be evil, then why would you call for anything other than war, and eventual extermination?

I have large problems with major tenets of Islam. I also have large problems with major tenets of Christianity and yes, Judaism. I believe that people, however, are people - varied, fallible, weak. Yes, there are those that are truly evil, using misinformation and fear to their advantage, creating rules that bind others to their will, hurting the human population at large. These people are rare. Most are caught in the tide, whatever religion or culture they ascribe to, and they are products of that tide.

People like you and I are caught in the tide. We may not have voted for W, but we didn't stop him from getting elected. We didn't stop his administration from allowing torture. Could you say it was your fault that our gov't did terrible things? That we've done terrible things, in other countries, for a long time?

Regarding overthrowing gov't, they are trying to do so in Iran, and it's not easy. Many of them are dead and dying. Many of them are being tortured in prison. Many of them are forced into lying about their motivations for statements to the Iranian gov't run press. For many, many years all the scare tactics have worked. Finally, enough is happening that maybe, just maybe, they might free their country from extremist rule. If you have followed what's gone on (and still going on, no thanks to the American press who is barely covering it) in Iran these last few months, you'd realize that the people of Iran are a lot like us - though these days, much more desperate for equality and actually willing to die for it.

In light of what I've been seeing in Iran, I'm rather horrified of your condemnation of them. They may not understand you. They may even not like gays. But they are still people, at the whim of their circumstances and their upbringing. They've had a taste of a free press and more rights for women and they are moving in those directions.

If we can not give in to hate against ALL Muslims, perhaps Muslims can not give in to hatred of ALL Americans.

"Everyone who is ___ is bad." Fill in the blank with the minority of your choice, and you have every war based in ignorance or intolerance, every act of terrorism, every hate crime. You're mistaking a subset of extremism for the whole set.

SM, you sound just like those extremists.

Consider also that in every Islamic country, there are surely untold millions of gay Muslims, forced into lives of repression, fear and denial that would probably make the Christian dark ages seem like a picnic.

It's discouraging to see that among the comment sections of a lot of secular humanist and atheist sites I frequent, there is a subset that subscribes to an irrational (in my estimation) fear of Muslims based on something like - their holy book commands the slaying of infidels, therefore, as long as Muslims exist, they are going to try to kill the rest of us. The slow growth of a moderate Muslim population has no quelling effect on their sometimes rabid-sounding rhetoric. (Some atheists are also prone to a similar response to moderate and liberal Christians - if you are in any way signing on to the faith, YOU ARE AS BAD AS THE WORST OF THEM.) On the whole, I think these sort are the minority among us nonbelievers, but I do sometimes find them hard to take.)

Okay, I'm getting rambly.

edited to add - based on Alex's earlier post, apparently, not "every Islamic nation" - and that's good to know.

I've posted, deleted, posted, deleted. These two posts say what I have been trying to in a much more concise way.

Lash, did you watch the show?

Actually, we watched a DVD :blush:

Mohammed Messenger of God?

no, I'm waiting for that one to go blu-ray.