Systematic attacks on Iraqi Gays
After hearing a report on this on CBC radio earlier this afternoon, I came on line to gauge what the reaction to this story was, I did find a thread... but it was locked within a half hour of being started (well before I came across it). I find the locking of the thread to have been an extremely questionable call. I would really appreciate it if Maysie would respond to this post with some sort of explanation of why the decision was made to lock the thread as opposed to simply re-banning someone who had flagrantlly violated board rules.
The post itself was drawing attention to the systematic violence and campaign of torture and murder being conducted against gay men, a campaign linked to the Medhi army, a militia based in the Shia enclave of Sadr City in Baghdad. The post almost made reference to "so-called honour killings" where the families of the victims are the ones who are responsible for the violence and killings.
I am not interested in getting into a debate as to whether the poster in question is a racist. What I am interested in is why the thread itself was killed. The OP did nothing more than draw attention to something only now being reported on in the main stream press, and while the poster may have had questionable motives, the story itself is calling out for reaction.
Had the thread been left unlocked, I had planned to use it as a platform to raise a number of questions:
1) On refugee policy. When there is an indication of a concerted campaign of violence against an group protected under the Charter, should not there be action by the federal government to expedite refugee claims from potential victims originating in the area where the campaign is taking place?
2) On Human Rights Groups. There is a somewhat shameful record of human rights groups on the question of state sanctioned and state tolerated violence against the LGBT communities -- this was most obvious in the 1980s where Amnesty consistently refused to consider Gay and Lesbian activists imprisoned and tortured as "prisoners of conscience". I am encouraged to see the Human Rights Watch (HRW) actually released this report, but would also like to see this expanded upon and see how it plays out in countries where any non-heterosexual activity is treated harshly under the law.
3) The role of religious fanaticism. Having wandered through the comments section of the same story on the CBC website, it was quite obvious that the rabidly anti-Islamic elements of the right were going to seize upon this story as a chance to bash Islam in general, but I think there would be some value in visiting the subject nonetheless... perhaps with an emphasis on how this level of fanaticism seems to mirrored in certain Christian sects, certain Jewish sects, certain Hindu sects (do I really need to go on)?
4) Working cross culturally to combat homophobia: One of the things that came to my mind upon reading the story was what incredible negative spin that exists within various cultural communities over equal rights for the LGBT community, and the lack of public space to have any discussion on overcoming the disagreements at the core of this. I thought babble might have been an interesting place to pursue that.
5) The commitment of babble itself to LGBT equality. Sarcastic comments aside (and yes, it was me who posted the one word comment "FINALLY!!" to the thread acknowledging the existence of a dedicated LGBT forum), babble does not really have a sterling record of bringing these concerns to the fore. I understand that there are a number of potential landmines in discussion around cultural reactions to the LGBT communities and in the questioning of rigidly defined gender definitions, but defusing the landmines seems a better solution than just avoiding them.
But I really didn't get a chance to bring those concerns up in the original thread. It was shut down within a half hour of having been opened. Again, I really would like to see an explanation of why that was. Even if the original poster, ArabCan, was motivated simply to cause trouble, banning the poster was sufficient - there was no need to stomp on the topic itself.
Now I will grant, there is an element of "that might have been me" when I read about the gay male victims of these attacks who had their anuses glued shut and were then force fed laxatives leading to what a spokesperson for HRW referred to as a "very painful death". But I still think it calling out for discussion and examination. It may turn out to be that this is the "Belgian Nuns" story to have come out of the Iraq war... but somehow I doubt that.
The news story being cited is worth being linked to again:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8204853.stm
bagkitty, I closed the thread for reasons related to the racist construct of the news items posted.
My experience has been that when threads begin in such a manner there is no recovering. Perhaps I was hasty, but perhaps you can forgive me. Given the levels of acrimony going on here recently, I decided to close a thread I felt was only going to be frustrating to moderate.
So, please continue with the topic.
Thanks Maysie, I have noticed there has been a lot of hissing and spitting lately... must the the feline DNA that has been spliced into some of us. I will be checking back to see if anyone has responded to the open ended points I raised.
Updated coverage from Iraq (Gay City News reporter), this is the first of several installments, I will add the rest as they become available.
There's a very great deal to chew over, bagkitty, and I'm not nearly done yet. And please excuse the thread drift, but your posts reminded me of James Loney, who was held hostage in Iraq along with his fellow Christian Peacemakers and never stopped condemning the foreign invasion. There was a lot of speculation that if his captors discovered he was gay, things would have gone very badly for him. After his release and return home, he was invited to speak at a Winnipeg Catholic Social Justice Conference in 2007 on issues of peace. When the archbishop found out Loney was in a relationship with a man - and that he publicly espoused LGBTQ rights and equal marriage - he forced the conference organizers to cancel the invitation. We talked about it here:
James Loney uninvited to conference for being... gay?
Iraq, Canada, long way to go in both countries...
Ok, I'm back to mulling over your questions.
'long way to go in both countries'??? LOL...no wonder nobody pays attention to the left in this country anymore
"univited to conference for being gay ? "
Bagkitty wrote : Now I will grant, there is an element of "that might have been me" when I read about the gay male victims of these attacks who had their anuses glued shut and were then force fed laxatives leading to what a spokesperson for HRW referred to as a "very painful death". But I still think it calling out for discussion and examination.
Unionist, you might deny you are minimizing and trying to change/stop any discussion of this story in the LGBTQ forum but it sure feels that way.
wtf
no shit
only the 2nd country in the world to legalize gay marriage but hey it's no biggy - Unionist really cares about that too, I sure but ...
VGE: Please, don't read too much into the way Unionist phrased his comment. I posed five specific questions in my OP (over a year ago I hasten to add) and I am opting to interpret his "that is a great deal to chew over" to be a response to five topics being raised. I don't think he was trying to downplay or minimize the physical consequences of the incidences in Iraq.
Just a note as to why this thread has resurfaced, I ran across the article I lined to in post #3 just this morning (Sept 6/10) and thought it tied into the article that I linked last summer in post #1.
WTF has been banned, incidentally. Carry on.
VGE: Same-sex marriage was a wonderful victory for gays and lesbians engaged in the political process. However, it's important to recognize that rights-based politics can in fact depoliticize LGBT struggles--as it welcomes gays and lesbians into liberalism and the status quo, often at the expense of more marginalized queer politics. For example, we might ask why "gay marriage" has become such a source of pride for Canadians (as it feeds into out national myths of Canada as land of tolerance) but we don't do that much when LGBT people are beaten up on our streets, or when other "rights" are denied transgender or other less acclimatized queer folk.
I am not really sure how a real discussion on this issue can go forward without contextualizing the discussion in terms of what the war on Iraq and the destruction of civil society has played in creating conditions where backward elements in Iraqi society have used the opportunity of the dissolution of the Iraqi state to take the law into their own hands. Talking about this issue as if it the problem stems entirely from core problems of Iraqi cultural values such as religion, outside of the attack upon Iraq in the name of "democracy" is to sidestep the real issue here.
Indeed, it is almost a truism that war and occupation let loose forces repression against any traditionally marginalized sector of society, and this includes Gay and Lesbian people and extends to women and even the Assyrian Christian minority in Iraq. Consequently, it is the US sponsored war, the occupation, and the imposition of a puppet government by western forces that are chiefly responsible for the tragic situation of rights for women and Gay and Lesbian people in Iraq, not Muslims, since prior to the invasion it is the fact that Gay and Lesbian people were not the target of an ongoing campaign of executions with the tacit support of the authorities.
Iraq was a Muslim majority nation in 1968 when it became a leader in the Arab world by decriminalizing homosexuality, and it remains a Muslim country today. What has intervened since that time was an attack by the USA that identified itself as intervening in the name of bringing civilized western secular values and democracy, and human rights, including one presumes basic human rights to be extended to people regardless of sexual orientation.
In summary a discussion of "religious fanatacism" of any kind is pretty much off the mark, since the real cuprit behind the scene here is the forces that claim to be "liberating" Iraq in the name of western "values".
Great post, thanks Cueball.
As a person who has spent their life growing up in Canada, I feel pretty qualified to judge my own experience(and that of my friends and neighbours) of living in Canada , if you don't mind
So listening to a bunch hetro guys talk about how tolerance in Canada is a myth and how the situation in Iraq has nothing to do with religious fanaticism it becomes obvious that any solidarity that some people who post in this forum might want to show with LGBTQ Iraqis will be far outnumbered by those wanting to change the discussion(to the problems with Canada and USA) with the usual smug know-it-all attitude.
@#$%^&
PLs excuse my run-on & on sentence
Who said tollerance in Canada was a myth. Not I. What I said was that the essential intollerance of Iraqi society because of "religious fanaticism" is a myth, because Iraqi gay men enjoyed more or less the same legal rights as Canadians, up until about the time that Canada introduced same sex marriage. Indeed, the great leap forward, happens at about the same time that the USA invaded to bring secular democratic morality and "human rights" to Iraq, and as a consequence the whole notion of legality and order was thrown out the window, leaving vigilante gangs free to do whatever they wanted to whomever most offended their "righteous" sensibilities.
I can't help but notice that when gay people are beaten to death in the United States, there are hardly ever discussions about Babtist Religious fanatacism, or that when gay men are killed in Kiev and dumped in the Dnepr river, we never have whole threads devoted to discussing Christian Orthodox fanatacism, and so on and so forth.
No doubt, were Canadian society thrown on its head in a simillar manner as happend in Iraq in 2003, all kinds of nastiness would crawl out of the woodwork, including a lot of kiling of people who are identified as Muslims, whom certain quarters of our society have spent considerable to vilifying through repeated assertions of the essential bestiality of that particular faith. Indeed, this is already begining to happen in the USA, where many forces are fanning the flames of prejudice and xenophobia, often using the rhetoric of "human rights" as a shield for their rhetoric.
Indeed, it is probably more dangerous to be brown and Muslim looking, now in the USA, than it is to be openly gay.
This is not undermine the importance of this subject or this story, but to frame it clearly in the context of the destruction of Iraqi civil society, brought about by the very same forces, who use Islamophobia as a motivating justification for their deeds, while claiming the act in the name of human rights.
Indeed would it be too much to ask for you to read the material in this thread where Michael T. Luongo speaks of his own experience in Baghdad under the title, A Concert at the Al-Wiya Club: A Reminder of Pre-War Baghdad:
But of course, some people are more interested in pursuing the simple logic of mainstream framing of these issue, and pick on the socially acceptable enemy: Muslims and their barbarism, and reject any discussion of our role in the destruction of Iraq, and what that has meant for any and all Iraqi's from any marginalized community.
Indeed, this article which comes from the lived experience of gay men in Baghdad doesn't mention "religious fanaticism" once, here we have, "the killings of gay men in the guise of religion versus Ramadan and the real Islam."
Nothing is sacred nowadays really. Unnatural carnal relations with animals should be outlawed once and for all.
Cueball I understand that already - Before the war Saddam didn't run Iraq like a theocracy he admired Stalin and ran Iraq as basically a secular dictatorship but that's in the past - the war is over.
Some of the militia's with power now are very much interested in enforcing their version of islamic law in Iraq today -it's nice that you want to give everyone a history lesson on how we got from there to here but you're still not dealing with the actual topic.
The war is not over. And it's not about history. It's about how secular humanist values have been used to justify the imposition of tyranny and lawlessness in the name of fighting "religious fanaticism", in particular Islamic religious fanaticism. I really don't have a problem opposing religious fanaticism, but I don't see how a discussion about "human rights" in Iraq can really go forward in this context without clearly articulating how the fight against "Islamic religious fanaticism" was used for justifying a war that empowered religious fanaticism.
Indeed, referring to the article by Luongo above, we see this process precisely in the testimonies of those Iraqi's who speak to the issue:
To merely talk about this through the lens of a discussion of "religious fanaticism", seems to me to simply reiterate the very same justifications that were used to support the war that created this human rights crisis in the first place.
Similarly, this comment from Malalai Joya about "Aisha" the woman whose mutilated face recently adorned the cover of Time Magazine so that it could be used as an example of what would happen in Afghanistan, were the US to leave, struck me: "During the Taliban's regime such atrocities weren't as rife as it is now and the graph is hiking each day".
I have been mulling over my response to what has gone on up-thread for several days now and have some reservations about posting... not because I am unsure about what I have to say, but because I run the risk of having someone I intend to quote feeling that I am somehow singling him out. So, Cueball, this isn't personal. I am responding to your remarks, in large part, because they are representative not only of certain attitudes amongst "progressives" in general, but also, as I alluded to in point 5 in my OP, of babble/rabble in particular. I think there is a consistent pattern of dismissing or diminishing the concerns of the LGBT communites in favour of some anti-colonialist theoretical explanatory model and it is that pattern that it is my intention to address. I hope you will accept that I am doing so with no particular animus, and that you just, unfortunately, happened to have made postings that I think illustrate the problem (and all conveniently in the same place... thanks)
In order to avoid any dispute over "selective editing" I have dispensed with my usual practice of editing out parts of quoted material with appropriate use of "[...]" in favour of reproducing quoted material in its entirety. I have, however, taken two liberties... one of which is to add emphasis through bolding (I have tried very hard to make sure I have mentioned below when I have done this) and also breaking up the material by inserting some of my remarks in between paragraphs of the original quoted material.
[emphasis added]
As I remember, the pretext for the invasion was to get rid of those pesky (and very, very, very well hidden) WMDs. Or was it the oil they were after? Or just to finish off what Papa Bush had started... some unfinished Bush family business? I think you will find the whole bit about human rights and western values a very late addition to the agenda and you are incorrect in offering that up as the reason for the invasion.
Be that as it may, the use of the expression "religious fanaticism" seems to have struck a nerve. Perhaps I should have used an alternate formulation: zealotry perhaps - or maybe my favourite: a variation on "A Christianity (Islam) so pure that even Jesus (The Prophet) wouldn't have recognized it himself."
Had I used the phrases "Islamic Fundamentalism" or "Koranic literalism" in place of "religious fanaticism" your concerns in posts 10 and 13 might be understandable. But as someone who has used the phrase "religious fanaticism" to describe the motivation behind the move to impose capital punishment for the "crime" of homosexuality in Uganda (a majority Catholic/Anglican Christian society), to describe the use of capital punishment for the "crime" of homosexuality in places like Saudi Arabia and Iran (majority Muslim societies, primarily Sunni and Shia respectively) or to describe the motivation behind mob attacks on gay individuals in Jamaica (a majority "Protestant" Christian society (varying denominations, but prominently featuring Church of God, Seventh-Day Adventist and various Pentacontalist groupings)) I think my choice of words is entirely appropriate. The rabid homophobia being acted out is taking place with theological justifications and is expressed by these zealots in those terms. Had my original post been talking about another specific example of state-sponsored or tolerated homophobic repression (Mugabe's Zimbabwe or Castro's Cuba in the 60s), I would have used different language as the justifications for their homophobic campaigns were ideological in nature.
I may not be particular restrained in my feelings towards zealots and fanatics and frequently less than temperate in the language I use to describe them, but nor do I single out any particular denominational construct for my contempt. I am very much lower case catholic in my use of the descriptors. If self-proclaimed Tibetan Buddhists were to exhibit behaviour similar to that of Mehdi Army and based their actions on the critical stance the current incarnation of the Dahlai Lama has taken towards homosexuality, you can rest assured that I would employ exactly the same terminology - religious fanaticism.
I agree that Iraqi civil society has suffered unspeakably at the hands of the west under the banner of the U.S. invasion. But the fact remains that some of the "fault lines" exposed by the breakdown of civil society are only describable and understandable in terms of their underlying religious underpinnings. That Islamophobic apologists for the invasion have, to some extent, utilized this point does not make criticism of the underpinnings invalid. Given that the U.S. government itself (and we are speaking here at the federal level) doesn't formally recognizes that any particular rights adhere to LGBT individuals, it can hardly be suggested that the protection of LGBT individuals or rights has anything to do with whatever "values" or program they are attempting to impose on Iraq. Criticizing the language of Islamophobic apologists can be appropriate, particularly those motivated by religious zealotry themselves - there is a lot of hypocritical finger-pointing by opportunistic Christianists in the U.S. But criticizing the language employed in this thread, in this forum.... not so much.
In a rush to defend against Islamophobic apologists for American actions you are demanding that everything be contextualized "in terms of what the war on Iraq and the destruction of civil society has played in creating conditions where backward elements in Iraqi society have used the opportunity of the dissolution of the Iraqi state to take the law into their own hands." While Catchfire may see fit to post a herogram in response to that particular demand, I reject it as I do not believe it is an absolute precondition for a meaningful discussion -- in no small part because getting bogged down in discussing the particular symptoms masks the reality that you implicitly recognize elsewhere in your remarks -- that given a similar breakdown in civil society elsewhere, the likelihood of outbreaks of rabidly homophobic violence occuring.
The symptoms are unique to each location, but the underlying illness remains the same, much as you have quoted in post 16 "Attacks on gay men were among the ways that the religious insurgency, discredited and in disarray during the US military surge, could regain legitimacy." That violence of that nature could ever be considered legitimating is only possible if you contextualize it within the twisted framework of religious fanaticism... that the "sinner" can be marginalized as less than human, as unclean, and ultimately as outside of the human family entirely. Then it is permissible or lawful to do what you please with them, be it deliver them a painful death as is the case in the linked article, deprive them of basic rights as the Christian right battles to do in the U.S. and Canada, or roll back what rights have been recognized as you saw (RC) Bishop Henry of Calgary call upon the Harper government to do by using it "coercive power" against homosexuality. That the example linked to in the OP was at the extreme end of the scale does not detract from it identifying the "basis" on which the marginalized have in fact become marginal... for their failure to comply with the world view of religious. Much as the concept of property is the required precondition for theft, so too is the religious concept of sin (and its step-child, the secular concept of crimes against morality) a required precondition for organized persecution of us sinners.
[emphasis added]
This is just point blank wrong. I grant the starting point, homosexuality was decriminalized in the late sixties in both Canada and Iraq (and just for the fun of it, I will point out this was about a century after the same thing had been done by the Ottoman Turks which carried through to modern day Turkey, coincidently a Muslim majority throughout) - but the similarities end there. In the intervening almost 40 years before marriage equality there was a massive sea change in both legal standing and social attitudes towards the LGBT minorities in Canada - one that was NOT mirrored in Iraq. A struggle was fought, and won, for inclusion of sexual orientation in the human rights acts of the various provinces (starting with Quebec's Charte des droits et libertés de la personne in 1979), student groups, trades unions and other civil groupings as well as "lower" levels of government included sexual orientation into their governing codes, the courts "read" sexual orientation into the Charter, non-discrimination clauses appeared in the contracts negotiated by the trades unions, anti-LGBT violence was included in the class of possible hate crimes by the federal parliament. Indeed, I think even a cursory analysis of the evolution of LGBT rights in Canada and Quebec would quickly lead one to the conclusion that the struggle for inclusion of sexual orientation into the Charters and human rights codes are the important victory, and that while some may think of SSM as "a great leap forward" it is merely a showpiece or symbol for the real struggle. I don't think it is merely coincidental that this progress goes along with the (much lamented in the MSM) decline in religious adherence and increasing secularization of the Canadian state.
Well, within the confines of babble/rabble, anti-gay violence isn't talked about much. Witness the way this thread was dormant for a year - or the lack of response that is generated in the More gay-bashing in Alberta thread Yiwah started (and which I have since essentially hijacked as a place to post media reports on particularly egregious anti-gay violence here in Canada). Now I realize that not all issues pique everyone's interest or urge to particpate in a discussion thereof equally... but I wouldn't be going too far out on a limb by predicting, based on my experience over the past couple of years, a thread on anti-gay violence is in little danger of being closed "for length" here.
If one travels even a little afield (EnMasse for example) one sees significantly more attention being paid to the matter, and let me assure you the theological underpinnings of the Christian anti-gay zealots are pointed out in a consistent manner. Venturing even further, into the realm of mainline LGBT sites, blogs and discussions, the identification of Christian fanaticism with violent homophobia is pretty much ubiquitous. If anything one finds the mirror image of your remaks cropping up... "why is everyone picking on us Christians when Muslims / Jews / what have you... are so much worse... you are picking on Christians again."
It is interesting, as VGE pointed out, that straight guys in this particular forum work so hard to turn a discussion of anti-gay violence (of which reported incidents at least are on the upsurge, see below) into a discussion of the potential for anti-Muslim violence. Strange choice of venue to drift that far that fast. It kind of harkens back to the discussions, in the very same forum, on free speech in Toronto's Pride march turned into yet another chapter of the "who is anti-Zionist enough" saga. While I am not at the point of wanting to turn this forum into a "breeder-free zone", I completely sympathize with VGE's "@#$%^&
" in response to both tone and content of what has gone on up-thread. Nonetheless I will grant you a partial point, were there a similar breakdown in civil society you can be assured there would be an upswing in "nastiness" towards Muslims - actually towards most denominational groupings who weren't the local majority... for as much as zealots hate gays, they seem to hate "mis-believers" apostates and anyone who doesn't drink the same brand of kool-aid even more. But in the context of a discussion of anti-gay violence, located in the LGBT forum that is really just an aside.
Interesting hyperbole. Of course this is a very difficult point to argue given the paucity of backing data. At the present time, discriminatory violence against LGBT persons can only be designated "hate crimes" in a minority of U.S.ian jurisdictions (not the case where race "brown" or religion "Muslim" is the motivating factor behind the violence) - so even the keepers of statistics are going to have a hard time coming up with relevant numbers.
What I wonder is why you started playing the "comparative oppression" game and what point you were trying to make? While I have all sorts of problems with the way hate crimes are categorized and reported here in Canada, I will observe that in a linked article posted in the Latest Statscan date on hate crimes thread (from June of this year) it was stated: "Hate crimes motivated by sexual orientation were also the most violent: 75 per cent were violent compared with 38 per cent of racially-motivated incidents and 25 per cent of religiously motivated incidents."
It is an interesting little quote from Luongo that is offered up there, although I am afraid, after more than three decades of being out, I don't have much sympathy for a vaguely artistic reminiscence romanticizing the comforts of the closet for an elite. As I remember, the constraints of the closet were particularly stifling... of course I was not of the class (or of the age) to be polished, well dressed and respectably sitting in a symphony hall, whether it was reminiscent of New York, Paris or London or otherwise. Frankly, it was the pressure to be clandestine rather than open with co-workers, family and friends that finally got me out of the closet... as is the case for pretty much all of my peer group. I do wonder what the cover charge at this Al-Wiya Club was... both monetarily for those polished, well dressed and respectable, and in other coinage for those whom the polished, well dressed and respectable decided to let into their midst. I guess Luongo sounds, to me, a little like Somerset Maugham waxing romantic about the attractions of Raffles... although without Maugham's lecherous commentary about the attractiveness of the Eurasian service personnel. I guess the impact of that particular little quote will range quite widely depending upon which audience it is delivered to.
Ah, some people again... well I don't know if I have been enrolled in the club... perhaps you could be more specific in identifying who you are referring to.
As to references to "the real Islam", or "the real Christianity" for that matter... personally, I am beyond tired of hearing Muslims and Christians (or anyone else) equivocate about this. If those identifying as their co-religionists are indulging themselves with fanaticism or zealotry or "An Islam (Christianity) so pure that The Prophet (Jesus) wouldn't recognize it himself" I am less than all choked up about how it affects the marketing of any of the "one true faiths". I find protestations along those lines even less interesting to read than boiler plate language in a contract.
Thanks for responding.
To start with what I can say is that there is a problem confusing the issue of latent biases in the society, and the legal framework of the state. I would be loathe to say that Iraq was as open to Gay and Lesbian people in the Hussein period, as Canada was in the intervening years from 1969. Indeed, I would say that in all probability it was not.
But this meeting place between legality and social practice are very hard to define, so in the context of a discussion where I can not claim to know the precise details of the difference between the practice of law, and the theory of it, I am not going to make any claims. It is much easier just to compare the legal framework between societies, than to measure "attitudes" which then manifest themselves as a "sea change" in "social attitudes."
Let's note here that the law in Iraq has not changed as far as I know. What has changed is openess with which bigots feel free to express themselves and act upon their bigotry. We don't know what level of official sanction was given to bigots and what actual protection were afforded Gay men in pre-war Iraq. Anything I have to say on that matter would amount to speculation, yet the point remains, the letter of the law and how it is applied are often two different things entirely.
You assert that increased secularization of Canadian society is what underlies the movement toward equalization of human rights. This statement is a priori and not really evidenced. Has it really increased? Assuming that your postulate is correct, your statement seems to come into conflict with your conclusion that the Ottoman Muslim Caliphate has laws as liberal, or even more liberal than pre-war Iraq. If that is the case, then your assertion that increased secularization leads to increased tollerance seems dubious.
At least you can not assert a hard and fast rule.
Indeed, I see no particular evidence that Canada became more secular between 1970 and the year 2000. In my view the legal basis for equalization of rights actually has more to do with the assertion of certain legal principles for the protection of minorities, which became enshrined as "multiculturalism", as part of the new charter. If we look at the roots of "multiculturalism" in Canadian society we see that it becomes expressed in law as an extension of the "secularism" that was created to bridge a divide between sects within Christianity, namely Protestants and Catholics. Hence we are legally bound to have a Catholic school system as well as a "public" school system, which in fact serves the Protestant majority.
To my mind, "secularism" as it is practiced in the Canadian tradition is not really "secular" at all, but based in a deal brokered among Christains to keep the peace. Multiculturalism is and extension of that principle to all religions and ethnic groups. In a phrase: religious tollerance. And and think to a certain extent this tollerance was embedded in the charter in such a way that its legal principles were expressed across a spectrum of minority rights, not just religion. But this "tollerance" is not necessarily truly secular. I would argue that it is not at all secular, in that it recognizes all religions in the state, not the seperation of church(es) from the state, but the recongition of all.
A case in point, is again the Catholic school system and the now defunct voluntary religious tribunals. In these cases, religion was not seperated by the state, but is recognized by it, and incoporated into it as a part of its own adminstrative function, with legal standing. Interestingly, in the context of this discussion is the fact that religious tribunals and publically funded religious schools, were acceptable as a legal concept in Ontario, up until the time that these rights were extended beyond Christians and Jews, and Muslim people began to assert that they also had a right to avail themselves of these practices in law.
Not to put to fine a point on it, but the practice was ended, and Dalton McGuinty asserted the principle of "one law for all Ontarians", amid a public outcry about Muslim Religious fanatics, very much the corner stone of this discussion we are having, actually:
Likewise, I don't see the point of your rebuttal to my point about the broad ideological context of the attack on Iraq being about "Weapons of Mass Destruction" and not "bringing democracy to Iraq". WMD was the specific legal pretext used to give the invasion a legal basis in UN Resolutions, but it was given in the context of the broadly propagandized notion that the attack on Iraq was part of the "war for civilization" that resulted allegedly from the events where "Islamic Fanatics" attacked the world trade center in 2001, and that the "fanatics" were even (according to some widely distributed reports) supported by Saddam Hussein.
In the broad sense our attack was legal on the basis of finding WMD, and morally right in order to unseat a brutal dictator and liberate Iraqi's who were in league with "Muslim fanatics" who had attacked us, and the "Axis of Evil".
I can sympathize a great deal with your concern about how myself and some others always find time to come out of the woodwork to provide an alternate view on this kind of issue on "human rights" issues involving Muslims and LGBT people. I hope in that light you can sympathize with the fact that I find it odd that in the majority of cases where the human rights of LGBT people internationally becomes a focus for discussion it is because the offending person is Muslim.
That may not be the case on this board, but it is certainly the case not on this board. In that light, I don't see the harm in bringing up the issue of the impact of the invasion, nor the fact that Luongo, one of the sources you are using as part of your discussion on LGBT rights in Iraq, does not mention "religious fanatics" once, and likewise, considers the invasion a key point of departure.
I completely understand the idea that closetted gay society in pre-war Iraq might not be the paragon of acceptable rights, the world over, in comparison to "equality" of the kind we have here, and the social status of the LGBT community in pre-war Iraq might not compare favourably to our state here today, but in real terms for Iraqis it appears to be a whole hell of a lot worse than it was.
Instalment two of the Gay City News article (two more to follow as they are published).
That is interesting, my reply to post 18 didn't appear when I first wrote it, guess I will try again (at least to hit the highpoints).
Cueball, thanks for accepting that my remarks were not "personal" in nature, I am very glad you seemed to accepted that, while I was addressing them to you, I was more concerned that they were "representative".
I did find it a little strange, though, that you spent as much time responding to my comments about "secular" Canada as you did, my sentence:
That sentence was, in many respects, an afterthought, I know it was a very late addition composed in preview comment.
I completely agree that Canada is by no means fully secular (a state I wish it would aspire to). It would be an interesting, although separate, topic, definitely worth its own thread, probably in Body and Soul.
I would still mainting, though, that it is demonstrable, particularly in reference to decline in religious adherence... I think the StatsCan has reported quitely frequently the trend towards lower and lower numbers in denominational identification in consecutive censuses... Canadians identification with various religious groupings has been steadily declining, and it was that I was making reference to.
Thanks for keeping us up-to-date on these articles. They are well written and represent a high standard of journalism.
Final instalments of the Gay City News articles:
Instalment Three
Instalment Four
I have been waiting for this. Thanks!
no problem, my bad for not getting up part 3 when it was first released... life interferes at times
Apparently the Pentagon was well aware of the killings months before they were reported in the media.
Yet another take on the situation in Iraq - this one from Brian Whitaker, formerly the Guardain's Middle East editor.
As reported over at Joe.My.God:
I will not be holding my breath to see if this ever becomes widely reported in the MSM or even in the so-called alternative press.
Another update, courtesy of Towleroad:
This isn't entirely on-topic, but related. I apologize if my posting it here offends.
Iraqi militants stone 14 youths to death over 'emo' fashions.
The original story in Arabic on al-jazeera.
I thought it relevant because it was reported in the msm, where targeting of gay and lesbian individuals is not.