Support For Islamic Dissidents And Honesty About Islam: Our Best Hope Against The Deadly Totalitarianism Commanded By Islam
Islam commands the death or conversion of "the infidel" -- and the death of gays and apostates. To be fair, there is some dispute in the Hadiths (the words and deeds of Mohammed and his close followers) as to how gays should be slaughtered -- whether they are to be burned, stoned to death, or thrown off a tall building.
From the Saudi Ministry of Education Textbooks for Islamic Studies:
"Homosexuality is one of the most disgusting sins and greatest crimes.... It is a vile perversion that goes against sound nature, and is one of the most corrupting and hideous sins.... The punishment for homosexuality is death. Both the active and passive participants are to be killed whether or not they have previously had sexual intercourse in the context of a legal marriage.... Some of the companions of the Prophet stated that [the perpetrator] is to be burned with fire. It has also been said that he should be stoned, or thrown from a high place."
Unbelievable that we are dealing with this in the modern age, but we are.
Yet, who are the last to know? The FBI. Robert Spencer posts at JihadWatch:
While Omar Mateen was casing other gay clubs to determine where he wanted to commit jihad mass murder, law enforcement officials had no idea anything was amiss: "I have been in this business for 30 years, and we all in law enforcement have talked about one of the theme parks getting hit by these terrorist killers. Never in all my years of training, and being involved in several investigative units, to include the FBI Task Force, would we have ever guessed a LGBT club be a target of an terrorist attack."Why would they never have guessed? Because they don't study Islam. Because they are taught to downplay and deny the motivating ideology behind jihad terror attacks. Because they have no idea these sayings exist, or what their significance is: "If two men among you are guilty of lewdness, punish them both. If they repent and amend, leave them alone; for Allah is Oft-returning, Most Merciful." (Qur'an 4:16) That seems rather mild, but there's more. The Qur'an also depicts Allah raining down stones upon people for engaging in homosexual activity: "We also sent Lot. He said to his people: "Do you commit lewdness such as no people in creation committed before you? For you practise your lusts on men in preference to women: you are indeed a people transgressing beyond bounds....And we rained down on them a shower of brimstone: Then see what was the end of those who indulged in sin and crime!" (Qur'an 7:80)
Muhammad makes clear that Muslims should be the executors of the wrath of Allah by killing gays. A hadith depicts Muhammad saying: "If you find anyone doing as Lot's people did, kill the one who does it, and the one to whom it is done." (Abu Dawud 38:4447) And: "Stone the upper and the lower, stone them both." (Ibn Majah 3:20:2562)
At Gatestone Institute, Giulio Meotti explains that there's an essential ally in combating this terrible thinking and other terrible thinking (and calls for murder and/or the removal of freedoms of all non-Muslims), and it is "dissidents" from Islam.
•Today a new Iron Curtain has been erected by Islam against the rest of the world, and the new heroes are the dissidents, the apostates, the rebels, the non-believers and the heretics.•This rapidly growing army of Muslim dissidents is the best liberation movement for millions of Muslims who aspire to practice their faith peacefully without submitting to the dictates of fundamentalists and fanatics.
•They are alone against all. Against Islamism which uses Kalashnikovs and against an intellectual terrorism which submits them to media intimidation. Seen as "traitors" by their communities, they are accused by the élites in the West of "stigmatizing."
•We should support them -- all of them. Some of the bravest defenders of freedom come from the Islamic regimes. Europe should give financial, moral and political support to these friends of Western civilization, while our disgraced intelligentsia is engaged in slandering them.
Here are a few examples:
Le Figaro recently published a long report about Muslim French personalities threatened with "execution". "Placed under permanent police protection, regarded as traitors by Muslim fundamentalists, they live in a hell. In the eyes of Islamists, their freedom is an act of betrayal of the ummah [community]." They are writers and journalists of Arab-Muslim culture who denounce the Islamist threat and the inherent violence of the Koran. They stand alone against Islamism which uses the physical terrorism of Kalashnikovs, and against the intellectual terrorism which submits them to media intimidation. Seen as "traitors" by their communities, they are accused by the élites in the West of "stigmatizing."The French journalist Zineb El Rhazoui has more bodyguards than many ministers in the government of Manuel Valls, and for security, has to change houses in Paris often in recent months. For this young scholar, born in Casablanca and who works at the French weekly, Charlie Hebdo, walking down the street in Paris has become unthinkable. A fatwa put out after January 7, 2015 reads: "Kill Zineb El Rhazoui to avenge the Prophet."
Threats against another dissident, Nadia Remadna, do not come from Raqqa, Syria, but her own city: Sevran, in Seine-Saint-Denis. They reflect the growing influence of Islamists in the lost territories of the French Republic. What "crime" was she found guilty of? She created the "Brigade of Mothers" to combat the Islamist influence on young Muslims.
There's a really terrific piece in the New York Observer by John R. Schindler explaining that denying the realities of Islam leaves us cleaning up dead bodies in restaurants, concert halls, and nightclubs:
America just suffered our worst terrorist attack since 9/11. We need to start talking honestly about the enemy that keeps butchering Americans....Within hours of the massacre, progressives and jihad apologists were insisting that the Orlando attack was "really" about guns - and certainly not about Islamism or jihadism. The Pulse massacre was about guns the way that the 9/11 attacks were "really" about box cutters and the 2013 Boston bombing was "really" about pressure cookers. There are millions of guns in Florida (the state has issued 1.3 million concealed carry permits alone) plus plenty of people who are not overly fond of gays. Why, then, was Omar Mateen the one who assaulted a gay club and shot dozens of innocent people?
How he kept this job even though he was known to Federal authorities for suspected ties to jihadism is something that has to be asked - and answered.
Based on his statement on the atrocity, President Obama won't be asking that question anytime soon. Although Mr. Obama demurred from some of his customary evasions, actually calling the attack an "act of terrorism," he quickly defaulted to his usual talking points whenever radical Muslims butcher Americans: "hate" and "guns" were cited frequently by the president, while words such as "Islamism" and "jihad" were notable by their absence. Mr. Obama's denial of the obvious, perfected during his two terms in the White House, appears unshakeable.
These evasions are met with derision by counterterrorism professionals, who deduced Mr. Obama's agenda back in 2009 when he dismissed the Fort Hood massacre as "workplace violence." Spies and cops have gotten used to this president's persistent inability to call the enemy what he actually is, even though that enemy constantly calls himself such things. "What was he gonna call Orlando," asked an old FBI friend just hours after the Pulse attack: "gayplace violence?"
It's not difficult to determine what's really going on here. Just two months before this attack, an Orlando mosque hosted an Islamic theologian known for pronouncing homosexuals as deserving of death. "Death is the sentence" they merit as an act of "compassion," the imam stated. While his invitation got some coverage in Orlando media, one wonders what the mainstream media would have to say if a white preacher in Charleston had pronounced blacks as deserving the death sentence only two months before Dylann Roof murdered nine African Americans in a church.\
...In the aftermath of our own Bataclan, President Obama has offered his usual platitudes about "hate" and "guns." This is escapism-as-counterterrorism-policy. Americans must demand better, including a reality-based assessment of our terrorism threat, from our next commander-in-chief. If we cannot name our enemy, we are already halfway to losing the war.
Glenn Reynolds, in USA Today, makes a similar call for truth about Islam:
In the wake of the Orlando shootings, people are trotting out the usual post-massacre talking points about gun control, terrorism, etc. But the solutions aren't so easy.Gun control is much stricter in Europe, but that hasn't stopped mass shootings like the ones at Charlie Hebdo's offices or at the Bataclan concert hall. (It's also very strict in California, but that didn't stop the shootings at San Bernardino.) Talking about gun control is mostly a way of avoiding a tough problem.
...To prevent this sort of event in the future, we need to do several things.
First, interrupt the flow of radicalizing propaganda at the source: ISIL and various other jihadist outfits need to be neutralized or destroyed. These organizations pursue a deliberate strategy of radicalizing Muslims in Western countries to turn them into terrorists, and they operate networks of sympathizers throughout the USA. We used to cozy up to the Saudis, but thanks to hydraulic fracturing we don't really need their oil anymore, so they need to be told to put a stop to this sort of support or else. We likely could have nipped ISIL in the bud a few years ago at minimal cost -- or kept it from sprouting in the first place by maintaining a presence in Iraq -- but it needs to be brought down now.
We also need to be clear about what it is we're fighting. We're not fighting Islam as such. Many good Muslims are horrified by this violence. But we are fighting the jihadist strain of Islam, and unfortunately quite a few Muslims view that strain as legitimate.
We can't allow ourselves to be blinded to this reality, unless we want to see jihadist attacks like this -- which have, sadly, become normal in the past few years -- continue and increase.
Observer link via @KurtSchlicter
"ld support them -- all of them. Some of the bravest defenders of freedom come from the Islamic regimes. Europe should give financial, moral and political support to these friends of Western civilization, while our disgraced intelligentsia is engaged in slandering them."
How?
This is one of those fights where an "everybody draw Mohamed" isn't worth the proverbial warm bucket of spit.
So when you say *support* I assume you are willing and able to spend large amounts of American blood and treasure in the Middle East to dismantle Isis.
I'm not holding my breath waiting for the Eurpeans to do it. They are being held hostage by their own Islamic imports
I also suggest that you watch the Benghazi movie to possibly get an inkling as to how difficult it is to tell who is on your side, and who is not at any given moment. .
Isab at June 12, 2016 9:54 PM
Another dark day. Another tragedy. Another slaughter (apparently) inspired by the butchers of ISIS.
What amazes me is that haven't been more attacks like this in the years since 9/11. If there are a lot of jihadist sympathizers in the U.S., then almost all of them must be unwilling to cross the bloody red line and kill "infidels" because if they had been, with the ease of obtaining weapons of mass carnage in the U.S. and an unlimited availability of "soft targets", they could have been mowing people down during the past fifteen years.
"...we all in law enforcement have talked about one of the theme parks getting hit by these terrorist killers. Never in all my years of training, and being involved in several investigative units, to include the FBI Task Force, would we have ever guessed a LGBT club be a target of an terrorist attack."
I find this baffling. Sure a theme park would be a likely target -- I'm sure it would quite a score for the butchers to slaughter infidels at Disney World -- but how can this person (or the "we" he/she mentions) dismiss any place where a lot of people gather as a potential target?
We almost had a tragedy at a gay club in Seattle at the end of 2014. On New Year's Eve of that year, just after midnight, a man set a fire in a staircase in the club in an attempt to set the club on fire.
Now, let's see...who would want to burn down a gay club in the hopes of killing a lot of gay men? The arsonist's name? David Johnson? No. LeShawn White? No. Miguel Lopez? No. Musab Mohammed Masmari? Yep.
JD at June 12, 2016 10:43 PM
The post begins---
> Islam commands...
But at this hour many sources, including the New York Times, are saying religious practice —and even belief— were not a big part of Mateen's life. ISIS will claim credit anyway.
Weeks ago you said "What we need is to be informed and honest about the dictates of Islam so we can do something about it." Doing fucking WHAT was never specified. I took it as yet another claim to bogus learnedness about Islam and complex world developments, another demand of attention for yourself.
Reynolds basically echoes this "sheeple" strategy in his last two paragraphs above, but they're introduced with a passage of some consequence:
You're on board with that, right?After all the bullshit on this blog from people who were against the Iraq War II in retrospect, in spite to the continuing habit of even nominally-centrist voters to foam at the mouth when they say the word Boosh...
Has the Orlando atrocity convinced you that the United States must accelerate direct military activity in the Middle East?
Crid at June 13, 2016 12:15 AM
Turns out Isab got the question up a couple hours earlier, but I want points for sincerity.
Crid at June 13, 2016 12:17 AM
Via Cosh, This. Had never heard of him. Read some more of his tweets. This was one:
This guy's life is the concentric center of Britain's retreat from global history. No one else in the world can understand why Americans don't want government to have the monopoly on deadly force. 'Why wouldn't you want government to *impose* dominance over your entire life?'
Amy is correct to harsh Saudi Arabia in this blog post.
But other alliances are probably due for a towel-snap as well, including Britain and her Commonwealths.
Crid at June 13, 2016 12:41 AM
Really? It never dawned on James Copenhaver, despite his length of time on the FBI, that a place where gays congregate would be subject to a bias crime?
Bias crimes based on sexual orientation account for over 20% of all bias crimes, according to the FBI statistics, making sexual orientation a distant second place as the basis of bias crimes. (The first, of course, is race, which is over 48%.)
With this in mind, it seems ridiculous to never even consider the idea that a gay club wouldn't make a perfect target for someone looking to take out as many as possible.
Patrick at June 13, 2016 1:52 AM
Patrick often annoys, but his question is spot on: Whether this is an example of religious belief or mere (Afghanistan) hillbilly savagery, is law enforcement truly surprised that a gay club was targeted? Are they oblivious to American's revolutionary embodiment of personal freedom?
But for the record, a quick glance at some FBI stats says Jews are at as much or more risk for bias crimes as gays. I'm ready to be corrected about this.
Note also that Trump was quick to use the phrase "radical Islamic terrorism," while Obama did not. (We trust this will not unduly influence Amy's behavior at the polls in November.)
Crid at June 13, 2016 2:48 AM
A tweet:
@MsBlaireWhite
We live in a world where Christianity is demonized over cake and Islam is defended despite 50 dead at a gay club. Amazing.
And on the contrary, the guy seemed to be quite religious -- Islam-practicing, that is:
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2016/06/orlando-jihad-mass-murderer-quite-religious-regularly-attended-mosque
And yes, Islam commands the slaughter of gays.
And the guy's dad celebrated and supported the Taliban.
Amy Alkon at June 13, 2016 5:30 AM
It's a shame that Obama has not tried a middle ground between bombing only on alternate Thursday's and a D-Day air drop.
ISIS is weak on various issues just as any large group is (money, oil transport, training, etc.), but I don't get the sense that we have truly gone after their ability to organize, train, and inspire.
ATTACKING the organizational roots of ISIS would satisfy the calls for "Let's do something ..." but it would also upset Turkey and others in the ME.
The MSM media is complicit and will be happier to sing "Kumbaya" while ignoring the fact that gays have been hated in the USA for 100 years or more and YET no one attacked a gay gathering place killing scores until ISLAM became a defining issue here.
Like snakes evil hides in plain sight and comes out when not in fear.
Imagine the difference if all LEO were told to "think out of the box" and all parties thought to be a threat really looked at. It might not have stopped this guy but it will stop those that can not hide their tracks.
Bob in Texas at June 13, 2016 5:45 AM
Rumors circulating that there were 2 more shooters who weren't caught...
Snoopy at June 13, 2016 6:02 AM
This blog, the killings, and the attempted 2014 fire mentioned above show why naming your enemy is so important.
A "name" becomes an image in your mind which then inspires you to "remember" and "consider" the image and the "name".
The enemy specifically identified, for example "radical Islamic _______", allows us to isolate our thoughts what exactly defines that enemy (specific Imams, certain regions of a country, etc.).
Without this "name" we have no means to try and understand the "who, what, where, and how" of the enemy.
Not all cops are bad. Not all black are criminals. Not all whites are supremacists. Not all Muslims are radical.
There is reason for Obama's reluctance to do this. Bush was quick to define the evil and to separate it from those that were not. Why Obama can not or will not I do not know.
It does not matter anymore. American blood has been spilled here and it is clear that without logical discussion (who, what, where, and how) more blood will be spilled. (Even my pacifist Sister recognizes that a killer will use the most convenient tool available.)
Bob in Texas at June 13, 2016 6:08 AM
" Doing fucking WHAT was never specified. "
Job #1 is a vigorous intellectual defense of Western culture. Unfortunately, our political elites are not up to the task, because they do not emphasize with the subject material. We've got a bunch of 70-year-olds running around still practicing transgressive teenage rebellion against their now-long-dead parents. Stick it to the Man!
"Has the Orlando atrocity convinced you that the United States must accelerate direct military activity in the Middle East?"
If we send our military into the Middle East again, it can't be the sort of half-assed war that we've practice in that region for the past 25 years. In order to achieve the objective, it will have to be a World War-scale effort. Millions of young men (and some young women) will be drafted. Military spending as a percentage of the federal government will have to increase substantially. Every citizen will have a role to play -- there won't be any going about our business without regard to what is happening "over there". We'll all be reminded of it on a daily basis.
Is there any support in America for that sort of thing? Five years ago, I would have said definitely not. But I think some people who witnessed the outcome of the Iraq War, and the aftermath, are now starting to have second thoughts about their second thoughts. We're a long way from popular support for a big war. But the idea isn't as completely crazy as it was a few years ago.
Cousin Dave at June 13, 2016 6:36 AM
"Bias crimes based on sexual orientation account for over 20% of all bias crimes, according to the FBI statistics, making sexual orientation a distant second place as the basis of bias crimes. (The first, of course, is race, which is over 48%.)"
Don't pretend - not that you were going to - that black-on-white crime will be honestly presented, even tangential to Islam vs. Others.
Radwaste at June 13, 2016 8:18 AM
Amy, for fuck's sake. YOUR OWN CITE says it isn't so:
You prefer a tantalizing, though instantly-withdrawn suggestion from an unverified "friend":That's where your head is with this, as with almost all your "reason-based" arguments. You'll cherry-pick you citations. You'll polish your exclusions like a jeweler buffing a diamond, but somehow convince yourself that you're concerned only with 'evidence.'Seriously... What the fuck?
Also you never got back to us on the military thing.
Look--- It's your blog. Be silly if you want. It's no crime.
BUT DON'T MOCK THE CLARITY OF OTHERS WHEN YOU'RE CRANKING THE FOG MACHINE.
Crid at June 13, 2016 12:39 PM
If this turns out to be true, I think it would be a big blow for the Clinton campaign:
Hillary's State Dept Blocked Investigation Into Orlando Killer's Mosque
http://www.infowars.com/hillarys-state-dept-blocked-investigation-into-orlando-killers-mosque/
Snoopy at June 13, 2016 1:41 PM
Lake--
Crid at June 13, 2016 2:32 PM
This is interesting, in the wake of a horrifying attack. It seems that Omar Mateen was seen in The Pulse at least a dozen times before the attack.
Wanna bet he got lucky all 12 times? He was a looker.
Patrick at June 13, 2016 3:12 PM
I don't know about everyone else, but I was heartened by stories of long lines at Orlando blood banks with people anxious to help in some way.
An attack killing 50 at a gay nightclub was met with the same outpouring of assistance as the attack on the World Trade Center.
And since men who have had sex with another man in the last year are barred from donating blood by FDA rules, the blood banks were, by default, filled to capacity mostly by straight people.
This indicates that Americans really are a decent people, no matter our political differences or what a few nasty Internet trolls do.
Conan the Grammarian at June 13, 2016 3:38 PM
Patrick - James Howell, the guy who was caught driving to the Los Angeles Pride event with a collection of weapons and a substance used to make explosives, once had a boyfriend.
Neighbors stated that James once pointed the gun at his former boyfriend. James was put on probation for an unrelated incident, and was supposed to turn over his weapons.
Omar and James wouldn't be the first two spurned, lonely men to become violent. Though I imagine Omar was doing his homework and screwing up his nerve as well.
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-gay-pride-la-weapons-20160612-snap-story.html
Michelle at June 13, 2016 4:55 PM
Whoa, people, slow down.
The FBI is dealing with this for the very first time since they fired all those agents for screwing the pooch on 9/11.
Let's name them:
(1)
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at June 13, 2016 5:40 PM
This guy said it better:
"Omar Mateen is starting to sound like a bit of a cliché.
Distant, loveless, taskmaster of father trying to turn his son into a "real man" creates misogynistic, homophobic hate-filled psychopath out of a male questioning his sexuality raised in a religion that dispises gay people.
The ultimate self-loathing powder keg. Horribly suggestible to a "macho" organization like ISIS. Where do think they get their recruits? The same place the klan and neo Nazi groups get theirs. Emotionally damaged boys."
Michelle at June 13, 2016 7:26 PM
Well, this has reawakened the timid, who are crying again that only police and military should have guns.
They hide when history of how badly that has gone is cited, but it's another reminder of how poorly educated and prepared to cope some are.
Radwaste at June 13, 2016 7:41 PM
I'm with Michelle on this.
Patrick, not every horror, or even annoyance, brought to homosexuals comes from repressed gay feeling. To see that kind of thought so often suggests mostly that you think your sexuality is secretly the center of human experience... It's childlike more than it's psychologically nuanced.
It may have been true, but I doubt it. He's first-generation, a child of Afghanistan immigrants... Why Amy chose to cite his father's
thoughts this morning is a mystery to me. The family almost certainly fled the Taliban... We'll know soon enough.
But I've been to enough gay nightclubs to know one thing about them... Those people are happy! Much happier than a similar cohort in a straight club. Straight people know they have all sorts of uncharted territory to cross before they connect with each other, even for a night. Gays seem to know the evening can turn out well, so they dance and have fun and they smile. To know they're socializing with a vitality almost unseen in human life heretofore probably boosts their mood as well.
I'd wager that was what he was most eager to strike at. He'd learned that when he slapped his wife around his marriage could fall apart, which probably didn't happen in the old country. The joy of those so very much better acclimated to liberty would have put his loneliness in the strongest possible relief.
To reduce this to a trite, still-in-the-closet narrative cheats the distinctively American warmth of his target. His victims deserve better, as does the country that mourns them.
An earlier comment seems to have vanished. Lemme try again—
> Job #1 is a....
Nope, I want to hear from Amy specifically. And if her response is also about the need for attention to a particular kind of rhetoric which she feels distinctively equipped to provide, it's going to continue to be difficult to take her seriously. Islam is one-point-six billion people. Human beings, cultures, history, economics, all that stuff.
I totes love his metaphor: If someone knew the faith only from reading the bible, would you trust them to understand the nature of Christianity? Would they be able to describe the history of Vatican City?
Crid at June 13, 2016 8:14 PM
And to be clear about this again, Amy, real expertise welcomes inquiry.
Crid at June 13, 2016 8:20 PM
Via the the Based Mom, Sommers: Link
Crid at June 13, 2016 8:24 PM
"Patrick, not every horror, or even annoyance, brought to homosexuals comes from repressed gay feeling. To see that kind of thought so often suggests mostly that you think your sexuality is secretly the center of human experience... It's childlike more than it's psychologically nuanced.
It may have been true, but I doubt it. He's first-generation, a child of Afghanistan immigrants... Why Amy chose to cite his father's thoughts this morning is a mystery to me. The family almost certainly fled the Taliban... We'll know soon enough."
Crid at June 13, 2016 8:14 PM
I think this time both things are true.
It takes courage to come out, it takes courage to negotiate a good marriage at a time when people are so free to leave. It takes courage to stand up to your parents the first time you do it, consequences be damned. By one account Omar didn't have the guts to stand up to his father:
“It’s the same guy,” Chris Callen, who performs under the name Kristina McLaughlin, told the Canadian Press. “He’s been going to this bar for at least three years.” [...]
“(He’d get) really, really drunk... He couldn’t drink when he was at home—around his wife, or family. His father was really strict... He used to bitch about it,” Smith told the Canadian Press.
“Sometimes he would go over in the corner and sit and drink by himself, and other times he would get so drunk he was loud and belligerent,” Smith also explained to the Orlando Sentinel, which spoke with at least four clubgoers who remembered seeing Mateen at Pulse at least a dozen times. “We didn’t really talk to him a lot, but I remember him saying things about his dad at times... He told us he had a wife and child.”
.....
As a first generation American, Omar might have been frustrated to the point of insanity to face the fact that he was not going to disobey his father or conquer the shame of coming out (not being a real man, being an embarrassment to his family, and bringing shame his family).
He had no courage and therefor would never give himself the freedom he saw around him. The evening will not turn out well for an adult male who hides from his wife and child by drinking in a bar while bitching about his "strict" father.
Michelle at June 13, 2016 10:05 PM
Not all men who fail to stand up to families, particularly immigrants in the first generation, are gay.
Maybe a (gay) lover will turn up. It happened with the Wide Stance guy.
Crid at June 13, 2016 10:13 PM
As a first generation American, Omar might have been frustrated to the point of insanity...
If this does turn out to be one of those murder-suicide things (although murder on a massive scale), I'm reminded of a line that David Schmader -- the guy who used to write the wonderful "Last Days" column in The Stranger (the Seattle newsweekly that's home to Dan Savage) -- used to write whenever there was a murder-suicide incident. He'd write: "Worth repeating annually forever: If you’re planning a murder-suicide, do the suicide part first."
JD at June 13, 2016 10:20 PM
"Not all men who fail to stand up to families, particularly immigrants in the first generation, are gay."
Crid at June 13, 2016 10:13 PM
Crid - point taken.
JD - excellent advice.
Michelle at June 13, 2016 10:35 PM
Crid:
Brilliant. So because I point out that Omar Mateen has been seen in a gay club a dozen times, and might have engaged in gay sexual activity, I must be saying, "every horror, or even annoyance, brought to homosexuals comes from repressed gay feeling."
I would tell you that you're putting words in my mouth, but Conan (the most egregious offender of all when it comes to hearing words that people never said), would sneer, "Gee, that seems to happen to you a lot," without even considering what I actually said and what you concluded.
On the other hand, psychologists have done testing which suggests that the most virulent homophobes also experienced the most sexual arousal when viewing videos depicting gay sex.
As the linked article points out, "This person, the legend that is Sigmund Freud, theorized that people often have the most hateful and negative attitudes towards things they secretly crave, but feel that they shouldn't have."
No, not every grievance directed at the homosexual community comes from repressed homosexuality, but I would say a good deal of of the most violent antigay sentiment does.
Patrick at June 14, 2016 1:22 AM
Too late to take it back. You've played the card too often. A broken clock is right twice a day, uselessly.
Crid at June 14, 2016 5:55 AM
Which card is that, Crid? I'm dying to know what you think I've said "too often" and that that somehow means I'm committed to holding that position, whether I want to claim it or not.
Patrick at June 14, 2016 7:24 AM
"No, not every grievance directed at the homosexual community comes from repressed homosexuality, but I would say a good deal of of the most violent antigay sentiment does."
Patrick at June 14, 2016 1:22 AM
I think the point is the cowardice and the choice to lash out in violence, not the sexual orientation. There are plenty of queer people who respond to the social stigma with self loathing and drug or alcohol addiction - numbing out and self harming.
I wonder, where do people harm their children beyond repair.
There is a social expectation that boys will harm others before they harm themselves. As a guardian ad litem I reoresented the interests of a boy who we thought would do well in a technical training program. The one available was only open to kids who had harmed other kids. The kid I represented was solely self harming. So I asked how badly he would have to hurt someone else, in order to meet the admission requirements. The administrator waved that particular requirement.
But having written that, I think the people who will shun you are the people who are okay will allowing you to self harm. Violence born out of shame and cowardice are the revenge of people with no vision or courage. How do people bootstrap themselves to create courage in the absence of having love or compassion for themselves? How do you create love or compassion for yourself when you have not witnessed what can only be understood through intimate experience?
Michelle at June 14, 2016 8:16 AM
French Muslim kills two, posts scene to Facebook.
Perhaps he was disenfranchised as an immigrant. I mean, except being born in France and all that. But still. It's probably the West's fault.
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at June 14, 2016 8:17 AM
@Snoopy
"Rumors circulating that there were 2 more shooters who weren't caught..."
Snopes debunked this one.
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at June 14, 2016 11:02 AM
Patrick, read the motherfucking thread
Crid at June 14, 2016 1:48 PM
Whatever, Crid. You bore me. (So, what else is new?)
Nothing I said in this thread (or anywhere else, for that matter) suggests "every horror, or even annoyance, brought to homosexuals comes from repressed gay feeling."
I said Omar Mateen was seen at the gay club a dozen times and speculated that he got lucky all 12 times. Yes, I suggested he might be a repressed homosexual. Never said that every person who has violent urges toward the gay population is the same way.
However, if we can extrapolate on the findings of the study that I referenced from "Psychology Today," it seems likely that a good number of violent homophobes are repressing their own gay urges.
But, as I said before, whatever. If you feel you made some point, and you've got me dead to rights over something I never said, have at it.
You will never be anything more to me than words on this blog. Your lack of relevance to me is yawn-worthy.
Patrick at June 14, 2016 7:44 PM
That was a 166-word yawn. If you're bored, don't read the comments.
Crid at June 14, 2016 8:15 PM
Working from memory, 47 of 52 Islamic countries criminalize homosexuality.
In 11, it is a capital crime.
And for those of you at home watching on the internets, the Ramadan Bombathon is ...
Jeff Guinn at June 15, 2016 2:12 AM
If this guy was only going to use Islam as something to talk about when it was done, if he was going to be repeatedly investigated and cleared anyway, does it matter?
Hilary, for her part, has promised prompt suspension of constitutional rights for Muslims, so this should work out just ducky for everyone.
Crid at June 15, 2016 9:38 PM
Working from memory, 47 of 52 Islamic countries criminalize homosexuality.
In 11, it is a capital crime.
Careful, Jeff. A few more stats like that and you'll be charged with Islamophobia.
Don't mention that in Afghanistan, Jordan and Egypt, more than three-quarters of Muslims favor the death penalty for Muslims who renounce their faith or that in Indonesia, a supposedly "moderate" Muslim country (and the world's most populous one), 16 percent of Muslims favor the death penalty for apostasy.
JD at June 15, 2016 11:32 PM
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