Homosexuality.
The American religious right hates it, and would like to see gays and lesbians stripped (further) of their civil rights. They’ve used teh gay as a major campaign issue, with the GOP attempting to ride into office on the backs of people who desire nothing more than the right to marry the person they love. And while the religious right is also happy to scapegoat Muslims in their eternal quest for white Christian male American dominance, it’s always fun to see how much they actually have in common with Islamic fundamentalists.
There’s the anti-gay thing, obviously. Then there’s the theocratic “This is a Christan [or Islamic] nation” thing. And the “women and men have essentially different characters, and therefore men should hold dominant positions in the public sphere” thing. And the “women’s primary duty is reproduction” thing. And the “my religion is the only way to God” thing.
(To be clear: I’m talking about fundamentalists here. Not most Christians, not most Muslims, and not most religious people. Just the conservative, often very vocal ones).
To demonstrate just how closely their perspectives are, let’s play a little game: Which godbag said it? A Christian fundamentalist, or an Islamic one?
1. “Unless we get medically lucky, in three or four years, one of the options discussed will be the extermination of homosexuals.”
2. “[Homosexuals] want to come into [places of worship] and disrupt [religous services] and throw blood all around and try to give people AIDS and spit in the face of [religious leaders].”
3. “I am not against freedom of expression, but this abnormal phenomenon should not be presented as natural. Even if it has roots here, it is rejected by society. And by [my religion].”
4. “Someone must not be afriad to say, ‘moral perversion is wrong.’ If we do not act now, homosexuals will ‘own’ [our country]!…If you and I do not speak up now, this homosexual steamroller will leterally crush all decent men, women, and children who get in its way…and our nation will pay a terrible price!”
5. “homosexuals are included in a list of sinners, who, if unrepentant, will not [be rewarded by God].”
6. “[Homosexuality] is the opposite of love for God. It is a rebellion against God and God’s natural order, and embodies a deep-seated hatred against true religion.”
Answers:
All but #3 are statements by Christian fundamentalists.
Of course, the Christian fundamentalist view is countered, in this country, by liberals, progressives and human rights activists. Which is a good thing. Without liberals, progressives and human rights activists — many of whom, it must be said, are religious themselves — this country wouldn’t be what it is today. And it wouldn’t be getting any better. Interestingly, American conservatives enjoy using the human rights victories of liberals (which their ilk opposed every step of the way) as proof that we’re better and more civilized than majority-Muslim nations. And then they attempt to push these victories back, while they stand in the way of domestic and international policies that promote human rights.
At the same time, they rely on Orientalist scholarship as evidence that Muslims and majority-Muslim countries are backwards. They position human rights doctrine as uniquely Western, when in fact human rights theories were present in both the “East” and the “West” centuries ago. But in doing so, and in engaging in imperialist wars, they put Muslims on the defensive, and their religious leaders react with hostility to anything considered “Western” — especially those things that Western aggressors use as tools to bludgeon them with, and as justifications for preemptive and unnecessary wars. Including human rights ideals, like equal rights for women and gays and lesbians. And so, to Islamic fundamentalists, certain human rights ideals are “Western” and culturally imperialst and therefore bad, while the very people in the West who are promoting cultural imperialism and aggressive religious warfare are the same people who oppose basic human rights at home and abroad.
It’s quite the dynamic.