Quote:
Originally Posted by dreadgeek
I'm curious, when do these nations become full moral agents? When, in other words, can we hold them responsible for their actions instead of holding other nations--Western nations all--responsible. I know you do not intend this but what you are doing is making these nations children, poor little backwards brown and yellow people who, were it not for the intervention of Europeans, wouldn't even think of such a thing. Poppycock!
They aren't looking for queers as an excuse. Their *religion* teaches them that queers should be killed. Not colonialism or imperialism. Most of these nations threw off the shackles of empire four or more decades ago. At *some* point we have to start treating them as full moral agents.
These nations would have thought this up if they had *never* had contact with a Westerner. It is instructive to note that each of those nations has *also* voted against anything related to women's rights in the UN, claiming--of course--local cultural integrity. They didn't learn sexism and patriarchy from the colonial powers, that was in play when the Western navies first appeared on the horizon. I see no reason to believe that homophobia was something that imperialism brought to these nations.
Cheers
Aj
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What I have such a problem with concerning religious (any) thought and homosexuality is that they "preach" that "all are Gods children." you find this across all organized world religions in some form or another (although in many of these countries, women are really only viewed as valuable due to their ability to have children- even to the point of ritually removing portions of a woman's body that would give them sexual pleasure- they only need to conceive and carry children, not have carnal pleasure in any form, ever).
This really gets to me in terms of anti-abortion zealots who "preach" about the sanctity of life, yet, believing that certain of "Gods children" do not have a right to life. Christian religions are certainly not the only one’s that do this. Personally, as someone that does have a spiritual life‘s path, this really angers me.
My statements come from more knowledge of former Christianity, yet, it seems that these hypocrisies appear throughout the various world religions. I absolutely detest some of the anti-Muslim sentiments in our society, yet, the sexism that exists with many forms of the Muslim faith is not acceptable to me at all and I don’t buy into cultural relativism as a pass for it. I respect differing cultural variables in terms of understanding people from different places and experiences, but, the days of PC-ing this stuff is over for me.
Then, on the other side of this we see spiritual thought that identifies and embraces homosexuality on a whole different level as in Native American spirituality and many Eastern based spiritual and religious thought. Two-Spirit beliefs fit here.
Now, if there exists an
ancient sense of homosexuality that indeed, does link with the sanctity of all life (as is true of Two-Spirit thought) which would be another extension of all being part of a deities
blessing (as it were), there is no link with these countries and Western influence (or imperialism) at all- and a huge divide between what is moral in relationship to honoring life.
No, we cannot continue to allow hiding behind cultural relativism as rationale for this way of thinking and it being part of legal documents and contracts of countries we interact with. Nor can we allow this to be accepted as moral in any human sense.
A person doesn't need any religious or spiritual connection in their life to see that this is simply another form of "cleansing" of a group of people from a society. Isn't any different than ethnic or racial cleansing that we have seen with the mass killings of particular people within societies throughout time to clear it of undesirables. same as the genocide of Jews and other groups in Germany and all genocidal events in history- and there have been many! Let us look to the genocide of Native Americans in the United States and when Columbus first arrived in the :“New World.”