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Loading ...Bosnian muslims demand gay pride cancellation
08.29.2008 2:16pm EDT
(Sarajevo) Bosnia’s LGBT community is planning its fist gay pride festival next month in Sarajevo but it has come under fire from Muslims, angry that the event will take place during the holy month of Ramadan.
Sarajevo, once a beacon of multiculturalism and tolerance with a mix of Christians and Muslims, become predominantly Islamic after the 1992-95 Bosnian war.Opposition to gay pride has been fueled by the Islamic magazine Saff.
Columnist Ezher Beganovic has called for the government to cancel the festival. Calling the four day event a “festival of homosexuality” that is an affront to Islam, Beganovic warned in a column that if pride went ahead it would prompt an angry reaction from believers.
Pride organizers say they did not intend to offend Muslims, but that the date was set a year ago.
“It coincided with Ramadan unintentionally,” Q Association leader Svetlana Djurkovic told the Reuters news service.
“This is the festival of arts and culture and there are many believers in our population as well,” said Djurkovic.
She added that conservative Muslims would have been offended no matter when the festival was held.
Throughout the countries of the former Yugoslavia LGBT people have few rights and discrimination is rampant. Slovenia is the only republic that has a registry for same-sex couples, although it provides few benefits.
Muslims really do go out of their way to earn the bad rep they have, don’t they?
These gay Bosnian people know their own regional culture better than we Americans.
They’d know that there 11 non-Ramadan months per year where at least they would be offending less than the holiest month of the year for their fellow Slavic Muslims of their country Bosnia. (part of the former Yugoslavia.
Why they would pick that one month when htey have the rest of the year and plenty of time to choose from makes little sense at all.
They knew the cultural sensitivities and could have taken them into account. They know they would still aggrivate their fellow Bosnians, but at least they would not be offending for them a season of very special significance.
Just my opinion.
It makes no difference Ann. Our very own existence offends them. Islam is a cancer in the Balkans.
Obviously, the objection to holding the festival during the month of Ramadan is that gays themselves are an insult to Islam. But I see no reason at all to respect or accommodate such an ugly prejudice. While gay orientation is not a choice, being Muslim is a choice. If Islam doesn’t like gays, then Muslims ought to choose a less authoritarian, more spiritual religion.
Who the heck needs a whole month for a holiday? why don’t we just give the muslims that month. they can call it their own. they can do all their bombing then, they can purge/binge all they want, they can pray five times a day for thirty days…
But after that, they have to sit down and shut up!
go LGBT Bosnia!!!!
I wish our LGTB family all the well wishes for their movement forward in equality.
See, how we gays always demand respect and no discrimination, yet we gays are some of the biggest disrepecters and some of the biggest discriminators that walk the face of the earth. These bigotry and discrimination issue cuts both ways.
What if you are face to face with a gay Muslim who chooses to follow his faith as is his right to do?
“See, how we gays always demand respect and no discrimination, yet we gays are some of the biggest disrepecters and some of the biggest discriminators that walk the face of the earth. These bigotry and discrimination issue cuts both ways.”
Oh please, Muslims in general have no respect for gays whatsoever and there’s plenty of evidence across the Middle East, and even in Western Europe to show this. If only you’ve read the Quran and the Hadiths… Their religion deserves nothing but contempt.
“What if you are face to face with a gay Muslim who chooses to follow his faith as is his right to do?”
I’d ask him what the basis of his beliefs trully are, and would challenge him on how he can really reconcile his sexuality with his religion despite the vile things stated by their second rate prophet. Then I would direct him to Faith Freedom.
Ann, you can not be serious?
Cultural sensitivity to a bigoted attitude?
Thanks But No Thanks. These people should throw their Pride whenever they choose to.
Roger Ramjet, what about the Muslims who are good and peaceful people, who just go about work and family and who don’t bother others. There are good Muslims who put out statements rejecting acts of violence, Have you read any of those? How you unthinkingly stereotype people just like those who unthinkingly believe all gays are child molesters. Equally thoughtless, ridiculous and false statements.
Bosnia’s LGBT community is planning its fist gay pride.
“Fist” gay pride? Freudian slip perhaps or a deliberate misspelling?
Great editing job, guys.
365 gaycom used to have many more glaring spelling, grammar and usage errors than now, Many more. I used to call them on these errors all the time. It often looked like their reports were never proofread or checked twice for basic errors of spelling and grammar before releasing them for the public to read. It also looked like the editor was missing in action as errors in basic
English just keep showing up.
Nick, I have not read or heard any of these “so called” statements. In fact, we have heard very few statements from moderate Muslems at all.
For decades the leaders within the Muslem Faith have exhibited that they are not a religion of peace or tolerance.
When you hear someone compare someone gay with molesters, you will see gays and lesbians disputing the accusation, immediately. When someone flies planes into a building or blows up a child in a market, the media has to search high and low for a Cleric to even say it’s unfortunate!
Chris Sullivan Said: “Muslims really do go out of their way to earn the bad rep they have, don’t they?”
You can usually find bad apples in any grouping of people, but in some instances its a matter of finding the good apples in the mound of rotten fruit. I have no doubt that there are some “good” Muslims, but you don’t hear about those in the same way you don’t hear stories about the “normal” gay person…that simply being that they aren’t newsworthy. If you’re not a Muslim blowing something up or a flaming gay having sex in publc, then it’s boring and that would affect ratings. Christians are no better with their 2,000 years of oppression, and Orthodox Jews are headed down the same path. I do understand your sentiment however, as I too get tired of trying to sparate the positive people from the negative people both of whom want to use the exact same label. If the good ones are tired of the bad rep, they should clean their own house and set things right rather than expecting us to do it for them.
Roger Ramjet Said: “Who the heck needs a whole month for a holiday?”
I wonder if it is a paid holiday?
Sam Said: “See, how we gays always demand respect and no discrimination, yet we gays are some of the biggest disrepecters and some of the biggest discriminators that walk the face of the earth. These bigotry and discrimination issue cuts both ways.”
And what exactly is it about the actions of these hate-mongers that you find to be worthy of respect? Is it their intolerance for homosexuals. Their vehement vocalization that we are “an affront to Islam” and the core of their spiritual being merely because we exist? Their willingness to do the Second-Class Community violence in order to celebrate their god? Respect is not some government entitlement to be handed out like free cheese, but rather it is something to be earned though hard work, good deeds and an honorable character and a bad idea or organization does nothing to earn it. Should we also respect the Nazis for their beliefs?
Sam said: “What if you are face to face with a gay Muslim who chooses to follow his faith as is his right to do?”
I would tell him what I’ve actually told gay Muslims: Islam is severely abusive towards gays. As in any abusive relationship, get out of it as fast as you can. If you stay in it, don’t be surprised if you are physically and mentally damaged by it.
Of course, that advice should not be offered to anyone who lives in a Muslim country which imposes the death penalty on Muslims who convert to another religion.