Beating in Jerusalem ends gay Palestinian Americans' plans

[oberliner]

11-11 04:00 PST Jerusalem -- A group of gay Palestinian Americans canceled a planned pride march in East Jerusalem on Friday after one of them was beaten unconscious by a local man who said he was from the Waqf Muslim religious authority.

The beating incident occurred on the same day an Israeli gay pride rally went ahead as scheduled, though without a planned march through city streets. The march had been called off after threats by religious and right-wing opponents to mount huge counterdemonstrations. Only minor violence marred the event.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/11/11/MNGBRMAK371.DTL

[The Deacon]

1. I Love It When The Great Religions Find Common Ground Like This

Retarded Fundamentalist Islamic clerics joining with brain-damaged Fundamentalist Jewish clerics to mimic inbred Fundamentalist Christians in their vile hatred & physical assault on people they see as dangerous to their 13th Century, barely literate, understanding of what they think Scripture says.
Truly I fear for the fate of our world when I reflect that God is just.

[msmcghee]

2. You really think their hatred of gays is due to . .

. . a misunderstanding of their various scriptures?

[The Deacon]

5. I Might Have Been A Bit Hasty

An argument could be made in some passages of the Quran & Old Testament against homosexuality. You really have no hope of find any justifications in the New Testament. That takes care of the hatred. What I was really thinking of when I wrote that was the physical assault - all three books make it abundantly clear that believers acting like common street thugs is abhorrent to God. Extra-legal murder is just that - murder - and is not tolerated.

[msmcghee]

8. I guess what I found intriguing in your post . .

. . was the idea that someone could read a book - or have a passage from a book explained to them by someone they respected - and from that intellectual process experience an emotion as strong as hatred toward a particular group of humans as a result.

I think hatred is a visceral thing. It's a deep "disgust" emotion that I suspect requires some equally emotional cause. I doubt it could be caused by an intellectual process like simply reading that God thinks its bad.

I think hatred is based in some deep and un-nameable fear - in this case possibly tied in to the fear young males have that they are not becoming the strong virile males that the world admires - that they will fall short in their father's or the world's eyes. (Of course almost every young male experiences that.)

I think reading in a book that God hates homos - or some equivalent - just provides a handy intellectual justification they can use if challenged. I doubt that such words could actually induce the hate - unless perhaps someone's religion became a truly sick part of their psyche. I'm sure that happens - like Ted Haggard perhaps - but I suspect that even he must have had a deep seated fear of his own uncontrllable homosexual desires and simply used words from scripture to mask his own "depravity" - much the way quite a few transgendered males end up in places like the special forces.

But, I was interested in your opinion as your screen-name suggests that you may be a student of human nature - to some extent.

Cheers

[The Deacon]

9. Well, I Respect What You Say & Agree To A Large Part

Human beings are much too complex for simple (or simple-minded in my case) analysis & hatred is probably among the most complex of our responses to the world. The only thing I would say in defense of my original thesis is that for many of these folks the cruder versions of their religions are among their earliest formative experiences. Sort of a chicken-and-egg situation - hard to say how much of the teaching they receive on these matters comes out of exactly the sort of fear you mention and how much is native.
And, in the end, the whole discussion really centers (for me, anyway) around how they can read the same book as I do, look out on to the same world as I do, and see things to hate while I see only lessons in how to love better, more & deeper.

[msmcghee]

10. Yeah, I appreciate that.

From my secular pov I'd say you see different meanings because your personality has formed more around a universal love for humanity and theirs has formed more around a fear of their own identity. You are each seeking and finding different things in the good book - the word of God.

It's the same difference that underlies liberal vs. conservative worldviews, psychologically. The world could use lots more of you and less of them IMO.

Peace

[IntiRaymi]

12. It's due to the Cult of Masculinity.

That is usually prevalent in militaristic, fascist societies.

[Jim Sagle]

3. The perps were Muslims, not Jews. Your moral equivalence is BS.

[The Deacon]

4. Read A Little Closer

The Isreali march was called off due to threats of violence by Right Wing zealots.

[Jim Sagle]

6. You're right , I'm wrong. I didn't scroll down far enough.

I withdraw my ill-tempered one liner.

[The Deacon]

7. Isn't It Amazing?

You really can't tell the wing-nuts apart without a program!

[Boston Critic]

11. The contrast is striking...

between Jewish and Muslim authorities.

Were there Jewish religious leaders on the extreme right who were out of control? Without question. Yet the Israeli authorities sought a way to allow the gay pride folks to have their say and to quell the ultra-Orthodox extremists.

The contrast with the Muslim/Palestinian leaders is striking.