Iraqi police complicit in gay slayings

[Berkut]

You know, I am about as pro-gay rights as any straight man can be, but at some point don't you just have to wonder how fucking stupid people can be?

You are a fucking gay dude in an insanely fundamentalist religious society that is perfectly ok with using gross violence to enforce their religious views on others. Get a fucking clue already - you are not going to be able to run around in makeup tongue kissing your boyfriend in public.

Sorry - but that is simply the reality. it will get better, but not tomorrow or the next day.

This is a society where people kill one another for the sin of being from a slightly different flavor of religion. However, within all the flavors of that religion they are willing to kill over, they seem to all agree that killing gay people is a great idea. At best, the enlightened ones will look on gays as abominations, but not ones worthy of being killed.

The idea that it is ready to accept open homosexuality is a pipe dream.

[garbon]

The results rather speak for themselves.

Really? How so?

But I can be convinced - where is your evidence that in fact all these dead gays are changing Iraqis views towards homosexuality?

We're talking about something "recent" so I don't see why one would expect results right away. I don't have any specific evidence on hand, so I suppose I'd have to fall back on my belief that minorities have a huge role to play in changing the public's perception of them...and then minorities refusing to stay silent is vital for change to occur.

[garbon]

The idea that it is ready to accept open homosexuality is a pipe dream.

Who says that it is ready? Does that mean that you are stupid if you don't decide to sit by passively and wish you'd been born in a better time/place?

[Berkut]

So you

The results rather speak for themselves.

Really? How so?

But I can be convinced - where is your evidence that in fact all these dead gays are changing Iraqis views towards homosexuality?

We're talking about something "recent" so I don't see why one would expect results right away. I don't have any specific evidence on hand, so I suppose I'd have to fall back on my belief that minorities have a huge role to play in changing the public's perception of them...and then minorities refusing to stay silent is vital for change to occur.

would advocate for gay people in say, 1200 AD Saudia Arabia stand up and demand to be recongized as well?

And that a Jew in 1943 Germany who had not yet been identified and tossed in on oven should in fact "refuse to stay silent" and get himself murdered, in the hope that somehow that will change anything...even when we know that is not the case?

[Berkut]

The idea that it is ready to accept open homosexuality is a pipe dream.

Who says that it is ready? Does that mean that you are stupid if you don't decide to sit by passively and wish you'd been born in a better time/place?

No, it means you are stupid if you go out and force your identity in the face of those who want to kill you, and have the power to do so.

And what is wrong with wishing or sitting by passively? Isn't that what you did?

if you had known that you standing up in high school would have resulted in your death,, are you really arguing that absent your "cowardness" you should have done so anyway?

[Berkut]

We're talking about something "recent" so I don't see why one would expect results right away.

Nothing recent about it at all - fundy Muslim countries have been killing gays for hundreds of years.

[garbon]

Nothing recent about it at all - fundy Muslim countries have been killing gays for hundreds of years.

Actually what we are talking about is fairly recent as it is only recently that gays have been so brazen as to congregate in groups and walk so freely in public.

The improved security situation in Iraq has prompted some members of the gay community to meet under certain circumstances in public, London newspaper The Independent reported. With Islam taking a negative stance on homosexuality, however, that openness was met with sweeping condemnation by several Iraqi clerics who called for its eradication.

(can't find link again )

As many as 25 men and boys suspected of being gay have been found murdered in the past two months in the Shiite enclave of Sadr City, Iraq, The New York Times reports. The sudden rash of violence follows the blossoming of a gay subculture attributed to the relative peace and security in post-surge Iraq, coupled with a new sense of freedom in the young democracy. Some of the victims had notes attached to their bodies with the Arabic word for "pervert," according to police.

http://www.diversityinc.com/public/5694.cfm

[Neil]

I'm getting rather offended at having Jews compared to gays.

Get lost. Do your trolling some other time.

Then shut the fuck up about faggotry.  If you bring that in my thread, then I reserve the right to comment.

These people deserve what they get.  Those who stand up against the will of the majority get hammered down.  If they were smart, they could go about their little trysts quietly, and live.

[Tamas]

I think the chief point here is that society of Iraq is very far from the point of advance where gays could start demanding their rights in western society.

Frankly, there are far greater cultural and political issues to be resolved, which are, in a practical sense, a prerequisite for openly accepting gays.

Many gays in the west, being artists or whatever, contributed to the general advance of culture and politics without ever really leaving the closet and taking up the open stance these baghdad fools were murdered over. This is what should be happening in Iraq.

[garbon]

So you would advocate for gay people in say, 1200 AD Saudia Arabia stand up and demand to be recongized as well?

And that a Jew in 1943 Germany who had not yet been identified and tossed in on oven should in fact "refuse to stay silent" and get himself murdered, in the hope that somehow that will change anything...even when we know that is not the case?

Perhaps you missed the point that I'm not advocating anything. I simply not as quick to condemn them as you are (which is what you do when you say they are fucking stupid).

[garbon]

And what is wrong with wishing or sitting by passively? Isn't that what you did?

I can only speak for myself, but it ate away at me. I spent a lot of time concerned that people would find out and pushed people away because of that fear.  Living a lie, so to speak, is psychologically tiring.

if you had known that you standing up in high school would have resulted in your death,, are you really arguing that absent your "cowardness" you should have done so anyway?

Again, I'm not really arguing for what people should do. I do think though that people acting like themselves is important to get things to change.

[garbon]

Many gays in the west, being artists or whatever, contributed to the general advance of culture and politics without ever really leaving the closet and taking up the open stance these baghdad fools were murdered over. This is what should be happening in Iraq.

Except that being gay wasn't an identity in the west until near or during the 20th century.  Unfortunately for the rest of the world, because of Western influence, that cat is already "coming out" () of the bag.

[Berkut]

Many gays in the west, being artists or whatever, contributed to the general advance of culture and politics without ever really leaving the closet and taking up the open stance these baghdad fools were murdered over. This is what should be happening in Iraq.

Except that being gay wasn't an identity in the west until near or during the 20th century. 

And once the Muslim world joins the 20th century, that can be the case for them as well.

For now however, they are better off staying out of site and working towards a more general shift towards tolerance and an advanced society, rather than their particular subset of intoelrated persecution.

JMO, of course. But I rather doubt that gay men in Sadr City walking about with their faces painted are really going for social justice so much as some kind of desperate plea for attention, even if it kills them. And it will.

[dps]

I can only speak for myself, but it ate away at me. I spent a lot of time concerned that people would find out and pushed people away because of that fear.  Living a lie, so to speak, is psychologically tiring.

Bah, that's just teen angst having nothing to do with your sexual orientation.  In high school, everybody is desparately trying to fit in, but in all teens' own minds, they don't fit in.  So almost everybody spends all their time worrying about how everything they do will look to the other students, and being miserable. 

[garbon]

Bah, that's just teen angst having nothing to do with your sexual orientation.  In high school, everybody is desparately trying to fit in, but in all teens' own minds, they don't fit in.  So almost everybody spends all their time worrying about how everything they do will look to the other students, and being miserable. 

Actually, that was another component in there but it was different.  After all, I don't think teenage angst usually extends to fear about one's own family.