Homophobia: 5 charged with calling for execution of gays

[BritPat]

Murder requires proof of Actus reus as well as Mens rea, Intent rather than mere thought and the homicidal act both have to have occurred before Murder is committed.

 

Murder isn't murder until a human is killed, thinking about it (and not doing it) is legal because it isn't Murder !!!

 

lol

 

Only one r in rea, wrong offence murder not buggery and you shouldn't be making up your own punchlines

[spindrift]

Many might suggest that it still should be.

 

Post and run?

[Halibut]

Many might suggest that it still should be.

 

Let me guess, you'd be one of them?

[Kaimani]

Ah, ok, so racism is legal as well - if that means we can think it, but not act upon it.

 

And I guess murder is legal too, so long as we just think about it, but don't actually do it.

 

i think things are only legislated upon when they're done. you can't police though, though they try. murder, by definition has to end with the intentional killing of another, so thinking about killing someone is not murder. same for all crimes.

[Bulgarian]

Is there actually any evidence to suggest that "knuckle dragging tattooed thugs" are more likely to be homophobic than the rest of society though?

 

I've haven't found that to be the case.

[Bulgarian]

And (remember) Lout (Lot), when he said to his people: "You commit Al-Fahishah (sodomy the worst sin) which none has preceded you in (committing) it in the 'Alamin (mankind and jinns)."

 

That sems pretty clear, no room for missunderstanding there.

[Wildcat]

Here are two Islamic sources (the top two results I found on google, I did not have to be selective at all) that both disagree with you.

 

http://www.missionislam.com/knowledge/homosexuality.htm

 

http://www.islamawareness.net/Homosexuality/homo.html

 

"Do ye commit lewdness such as no people in creation (ever) committed before you? For ye practice your lusts on men in preference to women: ye are indeed a people transgressing beyond bounds." Qur'an 7:80-81

 

That is pretty clear and explicit.

 

Also, unsurprisingly I see whoever wrote that naive and ridiculously dogmatic piece from the Guardian didn't mention the Hadiths, supposedly the sayings of Mohammed which contain gems like these:

 

"When a man mounts another man, the throne of God shakes."

 

"Kill the one that is doing it and also kill the one that it is being done to." (in reference to the active and passive partners in gay sexual intercourse)

 

Even if Mohammed didn't really say those things they still date from the early days of Islam and show that Mohammed's contemporaries certainly felt that way.

 

All information in this post is sourced from Islamic websites.

 

The Quran doesn't mention homosexuality in your passage, so I can't see why you think the passages are clear?

 

As for arguments with reference to Hadith .... well all sorts of things are banned in Hadith... that is why they are so contentious amongst Islamic scholars and why they devote so much time to assessing which are genuine and which are not.

 

The Hadiths are covered in the link along with a more general assessment by a group of Gay muslims. But this section on the Qu'ran passage is probably most important to throw in to the debate...

 

A few Muslim scholars have built upon this work to question the assumption that homosexuality is always an un-Islamic expression of love and sexuality. They have analysed the Quranic verses that are said to refer to male homosexuality, and have re-interpreted and examined these verses using reformist and feminist techniques of interpreation. According to these scholars, the word “homosexuality” is not mentioned in the Quran and the interpretation of the words used are reflecting pre-conceived assumptions about the meaning of the story of Lut and prejudiced views of homosexuality.

 

The words that are mentioned in the Quran include:

fahisha (7:80 & 27:54 – lewdness, indecency, atrocity, gruesome deeds); khabaidh (21:74 -improper or unseemly things); munkar (29:29 - that which is reprehensible), and sayyi'aat (11:78- bad or evil deeds).

The word fahisha is most often quoted as referring to anal sex or homosexuality.

Although most scholars reinterpreting these verses acknowledge that this term can possibly be understood to include anal sex or homosexuality, they point out that it does not refer explicitly or only to homosexuality but actually to illicit sexual behaviour in general. Therefore, these progressive scholars argue that the story of Lut is not specifically about homosexuality or samesex relationships. They believe that the story is about people taking part in widespread unlawful sexual behaviour, possibly including anal sex (which can also occur in a heterosexual relationship), but also engaging promiscuity, bestiality, paedophilia, and rape as well as inhospitality towards guests, abuse of power, and intimidation. In short, these scholars hold that the condemnations of the people of Lut are not about condemning loving and mutually respectful relationships between men or between women.

 

http://www.safraproject.org/Reports/Muslim_Moral_Instruction_on_Homosexuality.pdf

 

I would note since elsewhere I have been in a similar argument with some Christians that the sins of Sodom that the Lot story refers to are in the oldest sources about lack of hospitality or charity... Indeed the Talmud and Ethics of the Fathers the phrase "middat Sdom" is used "the way the people of Sodom thought". It meant a lack of charity and hospitality towards others; ignoring the needs of the poor, etc. Nothing to do with same sex relationships.

 

The origin of the word Sodomy is medieval. The "knowing of the Angels" A) couldn't have been homosexuality since they weren't even the same species B) Ya,da the Hebrew verb for "know." Is only a little ambiguous. It appears 943 times in the Old Testament. Usually it means "to know a fact." In only about a dozen of these cases does it refers to sexual activity; in these instances, the sexual meaning is always obvious. The text generally talks about a man "knowing" a woman and of her conceiving a child as a result of the "knowing." All such references involve heterosexual relationships. In the case in point God had already determined to destroy Sodom and had sent these 2 Angels at the request of Lot to see if there were 10 good people living there at Lot's request... if there were the City would be saved. The whole city came out to know these Angels. Something that obviously would seem to be about enquiring what they were doing in the town, were they spying on them, or meant them harm (which they were), what did their wings look like, did they have halos, what did they sound like etc... not that every man woman and child wanted to gang rape them. A pretty absurd interpretation... but one that has been conventional in Christianity... the New International Version of the Bible still translates "know" as "have sex" (unlike the King James which sticks with the more accurate know).

 

I have waffled a bit off the point, but it is worth reading the article and link.

 

The important point here is not what the majority of muslims believe.... Where you are talking about Islam, you are refering to a belief system... the important point is that with flexibility, and interpretation it is possible indeed has been interpreted by many muslims feminists and progressives as being a progressive message for its time and that reading it in that context, its true context it is an empowering progressive force for the future.

 

Being an atheist of course I can think of better more progressive books, but that is not the point. We deal with reality as it is not as we would want it to be, and those making the steps to interpret the Quran should be applauded and encouraged for everyone's sake and the least we can do is be careful about how we use our words. Careful so we don't argue against what they are doing, by arguing that progressive views are incompatible with their religion... for two reasons both compelling that doing so has a reactionary effect and holds back progressives and secondly because there is a lot of merit to their approach, just like there is merit to non-literal historical reinterpretations of any belief system.

[plekhanov]

Homophobia is not forbidden, nor is it illegal in the UK.

So? Just because we haven't gone to the Orwellian level of introducing the concept of thought crime here that doesn't mean that "the UK is homophobic".

 

As Conrod complains far from being subject to official persecution here, as they are in most Muslims majority nations, homosexuals here are protected by the law, as the existence of this thread demonstrates.

 

In fact the UK population as a whole are so gay friendly that even the Tories under that arch homophobe Michael Howard were forced to do a complete 180, drop their homophobic policies and launch a gay manifesto, in order to try and make themselves more appealing to the wider electorate.

 

In stark contrast to the UK's commendable liberalism you are reduced to the absurd level of arguing that Islam isn't homophobic on the grounds that homosexuals who escape detection aren't killed.

[spindrift]

In stark contrast to the UK's commendable liberalism you are reduced to the absurd level of arguing that Islam isn't homophobic on the grounds that homosexuals who escape detection aren't killed.

 

 

Once again, that is not something I've ever argued.

[INTERVIEWER]

Merely thinking about homophobic discrimination is patently NOT discrimination. As thinking about committing an act of racially motivated violence is NOT racially motivated violence until it is carried out.