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December 28, 2006
Our pecking order
Posted by: Chris
For those of you keeping track at home, this little nugget from the Dec. 19 issue of the Advocate should confirm where we stand in the Islamic pecking order of things. Apparently, somewhere below "terrorist":
In Showtime's second installment of the "Sleeper Cell" miniseries, Iranian-American actor Omid Abtahi plays Salim, a closeted gay terrorist. …
What reaction do you think Salim — and his gay sex scene — will receive from Muslims? I can't imagine it being too positive. In Islam being gay is one of the worst things — it's so bad, it's not even in the Koran. …
What have you heard from friends and family? When I explained the complexity of the character, a lot of people were supportive. But my father said, "I'm glad, but don't expect me to watch it.
That's right, that some people twist the teachings of the Koran such that they engage in the killing of innocents doesn't upset Islamic viewers, including even an actor's father, as much as the idea that one of these terrorists might be gay.
On the one hand, it's depressing to think the worldview of so many could be so twisted. On the other there is a weird sense of power — that our lives and our insistence on living as we choose has such a subversive impact at an obviously fundamental level.
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Comments
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"In Islam being gay is one of the worst things — it's so bad, it's not even in the Koran."
It seems to me if it were so bad somehow it would have made it into that holy book.
Then again, Jesus says nothing about homosexuality in the Bible and yet some of his followers make it their life work to invalidate and otherwise harm us.
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A ton of old Islamic poetry is homoerotic. Clearly homophobia has not always been a part of Islam. It seems to be a recent development, though the leaders of Islam all seem terrified of admitting this. Thug mentality rules.
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Forget about homosexuality, Alan. The issue that riles biblical fundamentalists even more is abortion and there's much, much less on that topic in the Bible than on same-sex sexual activity.
I have always thought that opposition to abortion, contraception and homosexuality really boiled down to an extremely negative attitude toward sex, especially as a form of pleasure. I've also always found that highly ironic, since humans were certainly constructed (by God, they believe) in such a physical way as to make sexual acts, including those found abhorrent by fundamentalists, extremely pleasurable.
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Chris - you are so right about the negative attitude towards sex.
As a Jew I always wondered what kind of God demanded a child's foreskin as a covenant from a barely sentient newborn.
It took porn and ex-sex partners to make me understand that sex (especially masturbation) is more intense when you have a foreskin.
This, and not any bizarre covenants or overblown health concerns, is why Jews circumsised their male infants. It is to lessen the pleasure of the sex act - solo or partnered. Yet, unlike female circumcision, it is not recognized as mutilation.
Baptism came into being because the potential pagan initiates to Christianity said "I don't think so" when the painful act of adult circumcision was presented as a pre-condition to their conversion. Recognizing a deal breaker when they saw one, the early Christian expansionists rejected circumcision in favor of baptism - after all, those dirty old pagans probably needed a bath anyway.
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Happy Endings from Queerty on Dec 28, 2006 6:09:04 PM
The interview between Joel Heller and For The Bible Tells Me So director, Daniel Karlslake? The documentary follows five Christian families coping with a gay member and will be showing at Sundance. Very fresh. Speaking of fresh, there's... [Read More]