Subscribe to Breaking News
Loading ...Besen: The globalization of gay bashing
The latest alleged anti-gay terrorism in Iraq is gluing shut the anuses of homosexuals, while forcing the victims to ingest a form of Ex-Lax. The special glue can only be removed by surgery – thus often leading to a painful death.
It is challenging to know if such information is accurate. But, confirming the latest form of torture is beside the point, really. What we do know is that the news from overseas is rarely encouraging.For example, in March “tens of thousands” of people from Burundi demonstrated to outlaw homosexuality. This destitute nation is the kind of place that you may have seen in late night infomercials where flies buzz around the lips of starving children. Eighty percent of Burundi’s population lives in poverty. Famines and food shortages have occurred and the World Food Program reports that 56.8-percent of children under age five suffer from chronic malnutrition. Yet, the good citizens of Burundi have time to chant and hold signs demanding the imprisonment of homosexuals.
Back to Iraq – our tax dollars are now overseeing the wanton murder of gay Iraqis. The New York Times reported this month that “the bodies of 25 boys and men suspected of being gay have turned up in the huge Shiite enclave of Sadr City…”
In Nigeria, lawmakers are debating a bill that would imprison gay people who live together and jail anyone who doesn’t rat out the gay couples. In July 2008, London’s Independent wrote a story about a 26-year-old gay man in Turkey, Ahmet Yildiz, saying that his own family may have killed him. “They wanted him to see a doctor who could cure him, and get married,” a friend explained.
Box Turtle Bulletin reported that a Ugandan newspaper this week published an article under the banner headline, “Top Homos In Uganda Named.” This outrage – that jeopardizes the lives of gay people – follows a recent anti-gay conference in Uganda featuring a board member from the American “ex-gay” organization Exodus International.
In Moscow, mayor Yuri Luzhkov has rejected calls for a gay pride march to be held during an upcoming European music festival. He has called pride parades, “gay propaganda” and “satanic acts”, according to the New York Times.
What we are seeing in front of our eyes is the globalization of gay bashing. The United States has exported marketing techniques and church structures to culturally homophobic countries. The sexual minorities caught in these nations do not have the same freedoms that we enjoy in the west, so they can’t fight back. They are essentially voiceless and fearful – allowing insidious myths and stereotypes to go unchallenged. With gay people effectively demonized and hatred promoted by civic and religious leaders, hysteria on gay issues ensues.
“U.S. religious right sponsored programs blossomed under the Bush administration,” explained Christina Engela of the GLBT group SAGLAAD in South Africa, noting the rise of such groups in her country. “Suddenly these people are using us as scapegoats to unite and build their power bases.”
Unfortunately, the GLBT community is not currently up to meeting the new global challenges. Passive and overly cautious bureaucrats staff some of our leading human rights organizations. They are good at reporting violence, but not very effective at countering it.
Even more disturbing, they sometimes serve as apologists in the name of cultural and religious sensitivity. Exhibit A is Scott Long, director of the GLBT program at Human Rights Watch. In the publication “Contemporary Politics” he lashed out at some of the world’s top gay activists and chided them for demanding that Muslims actually respect the right of GLBT people to exist.
“The incessant insistence that Muslim communities accede to the political agenda of LGBT identities actually forecloses politics altogether,” Long wrote. “It fences off the arena of shared interests….”
So, in other words, GLBT people should put their human rights on the backburner to assuage the grievances of religious people. We should also not act on our own behalf until all of the world’s problems are solved.
Fortunately, there are a growing number of GLBT activists who will no longer allow culture, history or religion to be employed as a rationalization for homophobia. We do not believe that a state’s sovereignty enables it to brutalize and marginalize gay people within its borders.
The world is shrinking even faster than our community’s leadership on global issues. It is time for groups, such as Human Rights Watch, to show us their comprehensive strategy for creating a new paradigm. The bloody status quo has brought us few victories and an abundance of ruddy reports that shock the senses. Many of us are tired of the elitist sophistry that tells us the world is too sophisticated to take action.
In the absence of leadership, there are those who will fill the vacuum – as some of us have done in our efforts to boycott Jamaica. But, the tired excuses from human rights groups have got to end. An unmistakable message must be sent that there is a steep price to pay for homophobia.
I have spent much of my life living and working abroad in countries much like the ones you refer to in your article. All of the author’s concerns are real. I do have one reservation about the comment, “What we are seeing in front of our eyes is the globalization of gay bashing. The United States has exported marketing techniques and church structures to culturally homophobic countries.” Forgive me but these countries have done quite well in been homophobic and coming up with obscene, violent unexplainable responses to deal with gays. They have not had to rely on us for this and seems to suggest they are lacking to creativity to react in the ways they do without us “exporting it.” The author is giving us far too much credit for the hatred and “creative methods” that is inherent in many cultures, including our own.
It is easy for to u to sit in the comfort of the USA where u live and talk about LGBT groups reporting on incidents more than acting, u dont have to worry about people searching u out to mame or even kill you. Why are taking up Jamaica’s cause nobody asked u to and if u gonna do so follow the lead of the people on the ground who understand it. Why didn’t u people come to Jamaica and do the Beer dump in the public view on the island, I am quite certain the passersby would have chopped u to pieces. U clearly don’t care, the price must be paid by us as martyrs here while you miles away remotely fuck with the system to have us fucked in the long run.
Fantastic article! This certainly brings my conciousness up to speed with what’s going on around the world and will definately make me start thinking not only about who funded Prop 8, which state is not passing gay marriage rights, but also which country is doing far worse. The United States influences every country in the world with our culture and money, and yet this torture is left on the backburner? No more. We need to start influencing to stop this type of behavior. No religion or history should be a reason or excuse for torturing people.
While the situation in Iraq is truly tragic, there are Arab countries that are seeing a progress in terms of gay rights. Among those is Lebanon where there is a visible gay community, a gay support center, and even local gay publications. Beirut also witnessed a recent demonstration for gay rights and was one of the few places in teh Middle East (other than Israel) to host a gay parade.
Luis D. Bermudez: I agree that no religion should be used to justify torture.
The problem is that by legalizing torture, invading illegally other countries, creating illegal prisons, the United States have lost a lot of influence. A lot of Muslim countries (the ones who are the most homophobic) hate the USA – With Obama things are going better, but it won’t change in one night.
Now, there are countries who are thinking : “Why do the USA tell us to respect human rights, when they don’t?”.
all form of intolerance towards LGBT peopel should be strongly condemmed
all states supporting discrimination should be put to the test and comdemmed as no go areas . stop all religious endoctrination , religions are lies and should be made illegal for indoctrinating and telling lies
Scott Long, director of the GLBT program at Human Rights Watch needs to be removed. How dare he represent us nad think that we shouldn’t speak up when were being killed in other countries!
Shari’a law in the 21st century is used in Islamic fundamentalist states. These regimes now outnumber the westernized “moderate” regimes.
In sub-saharan Africa, where Christians and Muslims share the population – there has been a fear among Catholic or Anglican leaders primarily, to introduce the most fundamentalist interpretations of the Leviticus code…our Shari’a code.
These African leaders have embraced a theocratic message that extends beyond its continental borders. The Papal position is more homophobic, and Anglicanism has undergone a schism led by the Nigerian primate whose hypocrisy is well documented.
For myself, I never underestimate our enemies. Yes, the Dominionist Theocrats are fundamentalist Christians who would like our civil laws to reflect their homophobic canon laws. Never forget that they are motivated by a hatred born of their ideological persuasions. Their hatred is more visceral than rational. In fact, irrationality is not an impediment to outrightly reject reasoned contextual theology.
This reality is why it pains me when I see and read the rejection of gay-affirming Jewish and Christian voices against theological homophobia.
Something happened to the Human Rights Campaign. It was gentrified to the point where centrism and triangulation became its new modus operandi.
It happened when they removed Cheryl Jacques from the presidency when she focused like a laser on marriage equality and direct confrontation with our enemies, and calling out our so-called “friends and allies” who complained that she was “too radical to demand civil and human rights now.”
The cocktail-sipping crowd came in. No federal legislation, even the collateral issues they raised to a level higher than marriage equality, has been achieved by this six-figure salary a year charlatan and his cabal in DC.
It is easy to sing “kumbaya” with those who either despise or demean your struggle, when you earn a third of a million of non-profit donated dollars a year.
This group, in particular, and there are others in the same ilk, has not seen a dollar from us since Cheryl was dumped by the A crowd in the board of directors. We used to send significant dollars to them monthly, but have diverted those funds, and our own volunteerism, to groups like GLAD in New England, and Lambda Legal and those who know and understand that marriage equality on the federal and state levels is how all other peripheral rights will emanate.
G-d bless you Wayne Besen. Keep telling the truth!
George’s post says it all.
wow this is horrible…..i brought this article to discuss it in one of my classes and my professor said this was obviously a made up article….i was so upset and i started to argue with her and she kicked me out the room….FML
r.j. garcia – Your teacher is obviously an idiot.
Methinks “george” is a right wing religious loony plant. As far as the great grand HRC is concerned: Don’t give these frauds a DIME of your hard earned $$$!! Send your donations to groups like LAMBDA legal who actually FIGHT for our rights and are actually STAFFED and HEADED by OUR OWN KIND!! Peace out.
Wayne,
If you probably look a little closer the thousands of people were nothing more than a front for either some religious group or a left wing group. Both have separate reasons to do this. IIRC some american business’s paid workers to demonstrate against unions.
Paying people for participation in some events is done all the time. It is sad that it is done but the world revolves around money. I will also ad that there might have been some small participation doing this on their own. It is essentially impossible to get a real answer.
The idiots of the world know how get people excited over just about anything. I think I saw a TV show that showed the Taliban was killing people if they essentially said/did/ or anything against the Taliban. Part of the TV show they had on a radio show that was interpreted into English and they were saying how they were going to have their sons become personal bomb carry people. It was scary but it did do the job of scarring people into submission. One of the things the Taliban did in this show was to forbid any female from attending school. The people were scarred and when the school was bombed it told the non-Taliban that they better follow the rules of the Taliban or else. The show was a realy eyeopener (to me). The Taliban use any and all forms to intimidate people. Even to the point of beheading a policeman and hanging his body in a public square with his head between his legs. Mob mentality is not new we had various issues here in the states between the KKK and various lynch parties we had a similar issue. What is KEY to understanding this the foreign countries do not have the same mentality of US people. When most of the people over there hardly attended anything past the 6th grade. So basic thought processes are more easily understood here and most the time you can talk to the mobs, over there it cannot be done.