Fools Against “Islamophobia”

How the Regressive Left Neutralizes the Gay Movement

2017-01-29

In this blog I present two examples of LGBT activists who, instead of pursuing the necessary fight against religious homophobia, become dupes of the imposture of “Islamophobia.”

Sommaire en français Dans le présent blogue je donne deux exemples de militants LGBT qui, au lieu de faire la nécessaire lutte à l’homophobie religieuse, se font duper par l’imposture de l’« islamophobie ».

First, a quick reminder of the horrific event in Orlando, Florida, last June, as described by Wikipedia:

On June 12, 2016, Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old security guard, killed 49 people and wounded 53 others in a terrorist attack/hate crime inside Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, United States. […] It was both the deadliest mass shooting by a single shooter and the deadliest incident of violence against LGBT people in United States history. It was also the deadliest terrorist attack in the United States since the September 11 attacks in 2001. In a 9-1-1 call shortly after the shooting began, Mateen swore allegiance to the leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and said the shooting was “triggered” by the U.S. killing of Abu Waheeb in Iraq the previous month.

Thus we have a massacre, an act of murderous terrorism, motivated primarily by Islamism and homophobia.

Now consider the following quotation taken from a “Solidarity Statement from LGBTIQ communities against Islamophobia” issued by the AIDS Network of several southwestern Ontario communities and co-signed by dozens of gay, lesbian and other organizations from Toronto, Hamilton, Ottawa and other localities in Ontario. (A copy of the document is also available here.) The statement, dated June 24th 2016, less than two weeks after the Orlando atrocity, declares:

We issue this statement against Islamophobia and in support of Muslim communities across Ontario. In the early hours of Sunday, June 12, 2016, (7 Ramadan, 1437), in Orlando, Florida, 49 people were killed and 53 people wounded in a shooting at a nightclub popular with members of the LGBTIQ communities. Most of those killed were LGBTIQ People of Colour, primarily Latino and Black. […] For people in LGBTIQ communities who identify as Muslim, this past week has also been particularly challenging as they deal with the shock and pain of the attack on LGBTQ people as well as facing the fear of increased racial profiling and Islamophobia. […] There has been a rise in hate speech against Muslims. Some are using this attack on LGBTIQ people to justify their racism and Islamophobia. […]

So let us summarize: An atrocious act of religiously motivated homophobia occurs, and what do these Ontario organizations do: they issue a statement in support of co-religionists of the perpetrator of the act, because somehow, in their warped imaginations, the possibility of antipathy towards those who practice Islam is worse than murdering gays in the name of Islam. They even give the Islamic date of the attack! Disgusting.

Imagine if a Christian fanatic, motivated by their faith, were to attack an abortion clinic, killing and wounding dozens of doctors, nurses and patients, and suppose that feminists, instead of condemning Christian misogyny and asserting their support for women’s right to control their own reproduction, were instead to sympathize with those poor Christians who might have to suffer dirty looks from their neighbours for the next few days because of resentment over this act. The total inversion (and perversion) of priorities here is obvious.

The appropriate response to the Orlando terrorist attack should have been, and was, for those of us who preserved our sanity, to denounce religious homophobia in general and Muslim homophobia in particular. Islam does not deserve special treatment any more favorable that Christianity receives. Islamic homophobia is just as virulent as Christian homophobia, and arguably much more so currently. Just as we categorically and resolutely condemn Christian homophobia, Islamic homophobia deserves at least similar condemnation.

LGBT Against Islamophobia at Birmingham Pride 2015Click to view full size
Source: LGBT Against Islamophobia

Another example: Consider the photo on the right found on the web site of LGBT Against Islamophobia. We see a bunch of colourful people at Birmingham Pride 2015 carrying a banner denouncing “Islamophobia,” “racism” and “fascism” and promoting “diversity.” It must be pointed out that:

  1. The term “Islamophobia” is obvious bullshit, a word whose purpose is to censor criticism of Islam.
  2. The word “racism” is inappropriate here because Islam is a religion and has nothing to do with race.
  3. The term “fascism” is worse than inappropriate, indeed it is hypocritical, because fundamentalist Islam is every bit as totalitarian as fascism, indeed more so.
  4. Furthermore, “diversity” is just a nonsense buzzword whose true meaning is that if you disagree with the previous sentiments, you will be accused of xenophobia or racism or worse. In the age of Islamophilia, the word “diversity” has become a form of bullying just like the other three words.

Fortunately, some clever individual had the perspicacity to take the Birmingham photo and join another relevant photo to it. Here is the result:

Gays for Islam, Islam for GaysClick to view full size
Gays for Islam, Islam for Gays

Blasphemy in the XXIst Century

The obsession with “Islamophobia” and similar specious accusations are used by the regressive left to silence necessary criticism of Islam and Islamism (the latter being a subset of the former). The accusation is a modern form of censorship of blasphemy, where the ban is enforced using intimidation. This bullying has effectively neutralized entire sections of the gay rights movement (but fortunately not all, see below) and other progressive movements.

Those who practise this form of bullying are partially responsible for the current wave of events such as Brexit and the election of Donald Trump, both of which were motivated in part by a desire for popular sovereignty, the ability of the people to have some control over their condition (i.e. democracy), a concept which has been denigrated and vilified by the regressive left by associating nationalism and populism totally with racism and xenophobia. In the words of Sohrab Ahmari of the Wall Street Journal:

[…] freedom of movement is unraveling now because liberals won central debates—about Islamism, social cohesion and nationalism. Rather than give ground on any of these fronts, they accused opponents of being phobic and reactionary. Now liberals are reaping the rewards of those underhanded victories.

[…]

For too many liberals, every Islamist atrocity was cause to fret about the “Islamophobic” backlash it was sure to trigger. This had become an almost an automatic reflex: When a jihadist would go boom somewhere, liberal hashtags expressing solidarity with threatened Muslim minorities were never far behind. But liberals didn’t bother nearly as much about the pathologies in Muslim communities, and in Islamic civilization itself, that were producing so much carnage. Some liberals would sooner abandon their own feminist and gay-rights orthodoxies than criticize what imams in certain suburbs of Paris and London were telling their congregations about Afghanistan and defending the honor of the ummah.

How Liberals Killed the Freedom of Movement

Where Ahmari refers to “liberals,” he is talking of course about regressive liberals. (In the USA, where there is basically no political left left, the term “liberal” is about as far left as one can generally go.)


An Appropriate Response

As mentioned above, the appropriate response to the Orlando terrorist attack should have been to denounce religious homophobia in general and Muslim homophobia in particular. That is indeed what I and my friends of the group LGBT pour la laïcité (LGBT for Secularism) did at the Montreal Gay Pride march in August of 2016, about a month after the Orlando atrocity. In the photo below you can see the banner of the group with the slogan “L’HOMOPHOBIE RELIGIEUSE TUE” or “RELIGIOUS HOMOPHOBIA KILLS.”

LGBT for Secularism in 2016 Montreal Pride ParadeClick to view full size
Contingent of the group LGBT pour la laïcité (LGBT for Secularism)
in the 2016 Montreal Pride Parade


Next blog: The Quebec City Attack: Some Context

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