I have decided to post this 9-15-2009 essay from Wayne Dynes, forwarded to me by Billy Glover, because it is compelling and thought-provoking about our relationship to international events and national policy.  There is much here to think deeply about, rather than to become partisan about. - DH

Homophobic killings

Thirteen years ago I joined a gay-conservative listserv on the Internet, consisting of about 60 members. I had never regarded myself as a conservative and found to my pleasant surprise that there were several other centrist (and liberal) members of the group. We were united by our common exasperation with the insufferable smugness and intolerance of the gay left, which had for so long dominated the Movement. Alongside this trend stood the “official” gay groups. These had no viable ideology at all, except for raising money and cosying up to the Democratic Party. No matter how much that Party ignored us, the official gays were determined to hang on. We see this sycophancy even today, when those folks urge “patience,” even though Obama has failed to deliver on any of his campaign promises to us.

For their part, the gaycons were uniformly in favor of the Iraq War. I tried ceaselessly to warn them against this stance, but my erstwhile friends were plugged into the DC establishment, and freely parroted the groupthink prevalent there.

The breaking point came when the double standard of the group became glaringly obvious.

In several newspapers and on his site [1] direland.typepad.com, the independent journalist Doug Ireland had meticulously documented the state-sponsored executions of gays in Iran. For the gaycons, of course, Iran was a rogue state, so one could expect nothing good there.

When I reminded my little group of the death squads that were killing gays next door in Iraq, the gaycons wanted none of it. They would have had to admit that the US invasion and occupation of that country had been a disaster for women, Christians, and especially for gays.

As the US presence diminishes in Iraq, the peril that gay men face there has only worsened. An article in the British newspaper, The Guardian, provides some gruesome details ([2] www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/13/iraq-gays-murdered-militias.)

The Muslim extremist groups use young militants with computer training to hunt down gays on chat rooms on the Internet. “It is the easiest way to find those people who are destroying Islam and who want to dirty the reputation we took centuries to build up,” one said. Once the targets are found, arrangements are made to attack and sometimes kill them. The groups now active are believed to be responsible for the deaths of more than 130 gay Iraqi men since the beginning of the year alone. With a stream of homophobic epithets, the deputy leader of one Baghdad group explained its campaign. “Animals deserve more pity than the dirty people who practice such sexual depraved acts,” he told a reporter. “We make sure they know why they are being held and give them the chance to ask God’s forgiveness before they are killed.”

It has been suggested that the violence may be a consequence of the success of the government of Nuri al-Maliki. As militia groups see that their earlier function of providing local security is no longer needed they “shift their focus to the moral and cultural sphere, reverting to classic Islamist tactics of policing moral boundaries,” one observer remarked.

Under Saddam Hussein same-sex behavior was not criminalized, though there was repression, as occurs throughout the Arab world. Violence against gays started in the aftermath of the invasion in 2003. Since 2004, according to Ali Hali, chairman of the Iraqi LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) group, a human-rights group based in London, no fewer than 680 gay men are known to have died in Iraq, at least 70 of those in the past five months. Actually, the figures may be higher, as most cases involving married men are not reported. Seven victims were women.

Rumor has it that the police are involved, but these reports have been denied. In recent days I received an email from a leftist gay group, noting only the killings in Iraq. This is the mirror image of the blindness of my gaycon friends. The lefties only want to hear about homophobic atrocities in Iraq, which are indeed terrible. They take this selective approach because their template is that all the troubles in the world are due to US “imperialism.” If only we would refrain, all would be well.. (As in Darfur, the Congo, Burma, North Korea, and other such stunning examples of Third World virtue.)

Since gays are being killed in Iran and Palestine, where there is no US presence, this cannot be the key variable. The essential factor is of course the fanaticism of Islamist extremists. Yet the left—and multiculturalists in general—are reluctant to criticize any aspect of Islam.

And of course they cling to their “blame America first” demonology. I would be glad if the US were less active in intervening throughout the world, but this would not mean that conditions would improve in most places. Kleptocracy and repression are rampant in much of the Third World.

Moreover, from Karl Marx to Hugo Chavez, the hard left has a long history of homophobia. That record is nothing to be proud of.

So why not just stop looking at these comments from both the right and the left? The reason I pay attention to them is that I have become disillusioned with the mainstream media. As a resident of New York City, I find that I am obliged to read the New York Times. But after that newspaper allowed the appalling Judith Miller free reign with her incendiary stories about Saddam’s Iraq, I no longer trust that newspaper—or indeed any establishment source.

The only remedy is to get your information from as many sources as you can.

Billy Glover’s forwarding comments (September 17):

I think I agree with your thinking. The problem is that I’m not sure that homosexuals were not as bad off before we invaded Iraq as before, because I agree that it is Islamic nonsense that is the factor. And that is why I supported the war and still do. There is no doubt in my mind that eventually we will have to confront all religious nonsense that is anti-homosexual.I saw a TV documentary, I think on National Geographic channel, on “Inside Islam.” It may be my lack of hearing it before, but I had never heard that there has been a study of the Koran like the Bible, and it came to the same conclusion: parts of the Koran have not only been mistranslated, but things have been added. Specifically, in a modern language translation words like tanks, etc were added, which obviously could not have been in the time it was “written.” (This in a text that supports war on non-Muslims.)

Another aspect is that, like the original Baptist belief, early Islam had no professional leaders, but each person was his own interpreter of the book. And it was pointed out that “Islam’ in non arabic nations is different from the Arabic ones and that, as we already knew, the worst elements are paid for by Saudi-Arabia, the Wahabis-the Islamic element like the right-wing “Christian” extremists in this country.

Need I remind anyone that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender persons are still being attacked and killed in the United States of America, and that it doesn’t make any difference which party is in power in Washington? We Americans also tolerate a culture of hatred. It isn’t only extremists who are guilty of hatred. We all need to re-examine our mean-spirited and violence-driven rejection of those who differ from us, whether that is in gender or sexual orientation, race or ethnicity, nationality, political persuasions or just every day opinions. People differ from one another. God does not smile on our mean spirits or our culture of violence, hatred and rejection of anyone. Period.

— Dan Hooper