Sistani wants gays killed in "most severe way"

[quaoar]

http://www.advocate.com/news_detail_ektid28049.asp

In the midst of sectarian violence that threatens to drag Iraq into civil war, the country's influential Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani has issued a violent death order against gays and lesbians on his Web site, according to London-based LGBT human rights groups OutRage.

Written in Arabic, the fatwa comes from a press conference with the powerful religious cleric, where he was asked about the judgment on sodomy and lesbianism. “Forbidden,” Sistani answered, according to OutRage, “Punished, in fact, killed. The people involved should be killed in the worst, most severe way of killing.”

Considering Sistani's stature and influence within the Iraqi Shiite majority, OutRage member Ali Hili declared the cleric's statements extremely dangerous.

“Sistani's murderous homophobic incitement has given a green light to Shia Muslims to hunt and kill lesbians and gay men,” said Hili. “We hold Sistani personally responsible for the murder of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Iraqis. He gives the killers theological sanction and encouragement.”

[ulysses]

1. fundamentalism: a threat at home and abroad.

:grr:

[Skink]

2. We in the U.S. just elect people like this.

[cali]

8. No, actually we haven't

There are plenty of horrid gay bashing politicians, but none advocate killing gays. There's one loony guy who's running for Congress as a dem who's stated that he supports the DP for gays and he was promptly made a laughing stock and marginalized. There's absolutely no support for it. Even the freepers are against it. It is completely socially unacceptable in this country to advocate the DP for gays. Name one elected official who has spoken for it.

[ruggerson]

11. There was no death penalty for Jews either

in Nazi Germany up until they started carting them away to death camps.

But there was a constant, unrelenting beat of bigotry and hatred aimed at the Jews by the government and by Christian religious leaders.

Sound familiar?

[cali]

14. There was increasing

social acceptance and approval of policies that officially marginalized the Jews far, far before they were sent to death camps. Laws were introduced banning intermarriage, barring them from certain occupations making it illegal for Jews to hire aryans. It didn't happen overnight.

There may be similarities to 1933 Germany, but if you don't know the very real differences, I'm afraid you don't know the history. That wonderful line by Santayana is true only to the extent that one actually knows the history one is referring to. An addendum should be added: History never repeats itself with precision.

Laws aimed at preventing gay marriage, as odious as I find them, can't reasonably be compared with the racial laws introduced in Germany in the thirties. No doubt the invective spewed by the right is repulsive, but the trend in this country has been an increasing exceptance of gays- as virtually any poll will tell you. Big corporations are some of the firmest supporters of gay rights, as is most of the media. It may be slow, and progress comes with its fits and starts, but we are moving forward when it comes to civil rights for gays and lesbians. Some of the Government is hostile towards progress, not all of it.

I could go on. I could go on about the Weimar Republic and the psychology of a defeated country, about the differences in the compostion of the populations of the countries and about the differences in government structure and national culture.

In short, the similarities are there, but the dangers are heavily vested in the current administration and the way it operates. It's not nearly as simple as the equation drawn by some here at DU.

Gosh I'm glad I have a grad degree in history, and no it doesn't sound familiar.

[ruggerson]

17. But if you can say

"laws aimed at preventing gay marriage, as odious as I find them, can't reasonably be compared with the racial laws introduced in Germany", then you don't quite get what those laws actually do.

They deny gays and lesbians the legal foundation on which to form families. They legally create a status of second class citizenry in a country putatively founded on the notion that all men are created equal.

The administration of George Bush, the Republican National Committee and the entire infrastructure of the political organization known as the "religious right" are using gays and lesbians in a horrific, relentless campaign of scapegoating and hatred.

The similarities to 1933 Germany are not only there, but they are striking and profound.

You say, in rebuttal, that the "trend in this country has been an increasing exceptance (sic) of gays"

One could make a similar argument that the Jews were a lot better off in Berlin in the early 1900's than they had been at any time in Europe since the Diaspora, that the tide of history was inexorably moving in their favor. And it was.

And then came an extraordinary set of political and cultural events peculiar to 1930's Germany, which set in motion the Holocaust, but the seeds of it were lain in the bigotry and the racism which preceded those events.

The one thing that could conceivably stop such an occurrence here is the fact that we live in the information age, and that any variation of a "final solution" that the religious right might attempt to set in motion for gays and lesbians could not be kept secret and in the dark for long. The communications revolution would stem, and probably stop, anything as horrible as what occurred in Nazi Germany.

But to deny the striking similarities between early 1930's Germany versus the Jews and early 2000's America versus gays is to completely blind yourself to what your government is actually doing to gays and lesbian families.

[QC]

15. Ah, yes, the false equivalency argument.

Where would we be without it?

Sistani is a mainstream figure in Iraq. Fred Phelps and the like are not mainstream figures in the U.S.

Sistani is probably the most powerful man in Iraq. Phelps and his colleagues have little or no power in the U.S.

There is no equivalency between the two.

[cali]

16. Name one, just one

elected US politician that espouses killing gays "in the most severe way".

[Tyranny of Evil Men]

3. How will they hold him responsible?

It seems to me that this, while being an abhorrent response, is just another attempt at posturing disastrous results in Iraq in another way. Like we needed any more.

We're damned if we let them kill each other for stupid things like this and we're damned if we try and impose our moral convictions and beliefs on them.

Thanks * you've done a swell job making life hard for everyone in Iraq. Did Saddam have this stance on gays?

[quaoar]

4. Welcome to DU

[swimboy]

6. Welcome to DU, Tyranny of Evil Men

:hi:

[MH1]

7. To be fair...

I believe Saddam did have a draconian stance on gays. Although I don't have a link. And, I think enforcing it was not really high on his list, since number one on his list was maintaining his own grip on power. Like our own government, regardless what his professed stance was, if a gay person was serving his larger goal, he didn't really give a rat's patootie if they were gay. (That's how I understand it anyway).

In any case, Saddam's stance on women's right to self-determination (or really, status as human beings) was apparently much more normal than fundamentalist Islam. There is a reason why women have to hide indoors these days much more than they did when Saddam was in power.

So your "Thanks *" is still well-placed.

[kenny blankenship]

5. I'm so glad our tax dollars are going to make this man a world leader

Are we and the Iraqi people better off now 3 years later?
Of course, that is if you think "better off dead" is a phrase that makes sense.

[quaoar]

18. Pretty soon it won't matter

Because everyone in Iraq will be dead or maimed.

[kentuck]

9. They just have a different kind of "democracy"....

They don't have to be just like us, you know. <sarcasm off>

[jimshoes]

10. Let freedom reign!

nt

[ruggerson]

12. So this is what we're fighting and dying for in Iraq?

Their right to be bigots?

[IndianaGreen]

13. Khomeini issued a fatwa recognizing transgender persons

and "sex changes" are legal in Iran. However, Khomeini was still opposed to gays and lesbians.

Persecution of gays has been the hallmark of the 3 monotheistic religions!