James Kirchick writes in the Yale Daily News (thanks to Charles Jacobs) about how London Mayor Ken Livingstone has chosen to support the jihadist pseudo-moderate Qaradawi in contradiction of his previous support of rights for homosexuals. This article shows why it is so important for Westerners to drop the outmoded language of Left and Right, as I have argued many times: there are those who are interested in defending Western civilization against the jihad, and those who aren't. Ken Livingstone isn't. It is time for those on the other side, those who don't believe that gay or anyone else should be "beheaded" and "chopped up" to stand together, whatever they think of homosexuality itself. Opponents and proponents of gay marriage, in other words, need to unite now and defend against a common enemy who would render all such controversies moot.
On first glance, London's gay community could have no better friend than Ken Livingstone.A legendary member of the far-left wing of the Labour Party, the mayor has been an outspoken advocate for gay rights. He started the first Partnership Register in the United Kingdom. He regularly attends the London Gay Pride Parade. He has worked with his city's police force to crack down on homophobic crime.
In spite of this flawless record on gay rights, Livingstone has repeatedly expressed support for radical Islamist cleric Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a Qatar-based imam whom the mayor hosted at City Hall last year. The sheikh runs the Web site Islamonline, which, according to the British gay rights group Outrage!, has labeled homosexuals "perverted" and "abominable." Qaradawi himself has called homosexuality a "disease that needs a cure" and his site suggests that gays be executed via "burning or stoning to death." Wives, if they misbehave, are to be beaten, but those concerned about the status of women ought not to be concerned, for the thrashing need only be "light."
Livingstone has called Qaradawi a "leading progressive Muslim," and has said, "his is very similar to the position of Pope John XXIII." The Pope was certainly no friend of gays, but one thinks that Livingstone had another comparison in mind. John XXIII, you see, was a reformer who worked to repair the Church's relations with Jews. An odd comparison, nevertheless, given the fact that Qaradawi has called suicide bombings in Israel "martyrdom operations."
In a fit of oxymoronic stupor, Livingstone defended Qaradawi by calling him, "an absolutely sane Islamist."
The sheikh has been banned from entering the United States since 1999. He was invited to a conference in Manchester this summer, but his invitation was later revoked. But Livingstone supported Qaradawi's visit all along -- especially after Islamists killed 56 people this summer.
Livingstone's unrepentant embrace of Qaradawi is all the more repulsive in light of revelations made just after the July 7 attacks that gay people may soon be targeted for Islamist terror. Peter Tatchell, the UK's most visible gay rights figure, has stated that he and two other British gay campaigners were informed by anonymous fundamentalists that they are on a "hit list" and are to be "beheaded" and "chopped up" in accordance with "Islamic law."
"If the terrorists want to attack the gay community," Outrage! campaign coordinator Brett Lock said, "they may well attempt to detonate a bomb in a crowded gay bar, restaurant, club or community center." Gay people around the world who have always viewed these locations as places of refuge would be foolish to laugh off the hazard of an Islamist bomb attack on such establishments. Can one imagine a better target in which to murder and maim perverted infidels?
Read it all.
This is something I don't understand where the college campuses are concerned. Both groups are widely supported, but mutually exclusive to each other (so to speak).
So. At some point, someone is going to decide that One of these groups will have ascendancy on campus.
What happens to the other one? And, seeing as these thousands of college students would be moving into the Real world- not to mention, politics, which group is then going to go down the tubes? Who will be sought after for their votes? Who will the laws be protecting then? (re: What is that Senator's name again, in Dearborne?)
Hey, I know my postings are pathetic, but that does make some sense, yes?
On a related note:
Caution: Your professor may have PMS
Red Ken is similarly untroubled by Qaradawi's views on women. This 'scholar' believes that women who dress immodestly invite rape, and that men may beat their wives if they do not leave a visible mark. None of this bothers that demented loon Madeleine Bunting, who interviews him very respectfully in my favourite newspaper.
Perhaps Qaradawi is too frail to beat his own wife, or to stone any gays himself.
Ken Livingstone is loathsome. He is extending the congestion charge despite widespread opposition, and he scrapped the routemaster buses despite saying only four years ago that "only some ghastly dehumanised moron" would want to do this.
Moreover, he may be somewhat anti-Semitic, as indicated by the Finegold affair, or if not actually anit-Semitic, less sensitive to the feelings of Jews than to those of Muslims.
And he gets paid a fortune. Out of my taxes.
Gary,
The great writer and commentator Christopher Hitchens addressed this contradiction. For a long time, he was one of the strongest advocates of traditional left-wing politics. I believe, although I'm not sure, that he was a regular contributor to periodicals such as The Nation. But after 9/11, he changed. He has said that one reason he began questioning the traditional left was the widespread view among them that former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, a conservative, was more dangerous to the world than Osama Bin-Laden. It was so ridiculous, he said, that he had to move away from his former co-horts. I think there is an element of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" at work among academics. Many academics view the United States and the free market system as their enemies. So do the Islamists. So the academics see the Islamists as their allies in the struggle against the "evil" U.S., even though the Islamists would destroy the academics if they had the chance. I think this type of thinking reflects the idiocy that prevails a many college campuses these days, but there it is. It would be nice if those on the left exhibited the same intellectual honesty as Christopher Hitchens, but I'm pessimistic about that.
I don't have time to read the whole thing, but I would like to point out an provokative website (especially useful for those who are caught up in debates with dimwitted dhimmi leftist). It is an anti-Islamist gay website that denounces Ken Livingstone (and other assorted leftists) as enemies of the people ... and Daniel Pipes as a hero to boot! Check it out:
http://www.flameout.org/
Gary, you raise an interesting point. In my opinion, gays will need to drop their short-term demand for marriage for themselves in order to work toward saving civilization for all the people.
Once we open the door to homosexual marriage, all barriers to polygamy fall as well. If we lose monogamy, we lose the most essential and basic institution of the Western world. The nuclear family has functioned (at least until recently) to transmit crucial cultural values from generation to generation through all the various political and social upheavals the West has experienced for thousands of years. When the family crumbles, so does civilization.
So the question is, will gays look only at the short term and push for full marriage rights, thereby allying themselves with Muslims and civilization-destroying polygamy, or will wiser heads prevail as they come to see their long-term existence threatened by those very seeming allies?
Once we open the door to homosexual marriage, all barriers to polygamy fall as well.
In the UK we're introducing 'civil partnerships' for gay couples. This is the ideal solution, as it gives next-of-kin rights, inheritance rights, etc without calling it 'marriage'. There is no question of extending this to include polygamy.
In my opinion polygamy is much more of a deviation from the ideal of marriage than is a gay civil union. The latter is at least a relationship of equals, at least in theory.
Matthew Parris, political commentator in The Times, who happens to be gay, has some interesting observations on this:
He's right. He often is.
In the West, the opponents of gay marriage are also the ones most likely to be critical of Islam; while supporters of gay marriage are also the ones most likely to be whitewashers and defenders of Islam.
It should not be a Left/Right issue, but it plainly is.
There is something about the culture of the Right that is conducive to the rationality that leads to criticism and condemnation of Islam (even though some of Islam's puritanical ideals resonate, theoretically, with the Right); while there is something about the culture of the Left that inhibits this, often to irrational and pathological degrees.
There are glaring exceptions (Bush, et al.), but the exceptions prove the rule: PC rules our sociopolitical airwaves, and has significant control over what Bush, Howard, and even the Pope can do and say.
Red Ken Livingstone is am embittered Marxist Traitor whose 'funding' ought to be investigated - which may explain his fervent support for Qaradawi. 'Mr Quacky' that frail old man described by Bunting lives in great style in
Qatar , a mansion no less and our Sheik is very
close to filthy rich Emir of Qatar. Indeed it was
Qaradwi who thought up Al Jazeera : the Emir who funded it.
There is a money trail of corruption I believe, running from the Middle East to Britain, also into Europe. This is why influential folk become
Apologists for Islam even after Bombings.
Livingstone,Galloway,Ridley to name a few are BEING PAID HANDSOMELY TO DEFEND ISLAM!
This is most welcome and well-written article, but I do take issue with two lines:
"Livingstone has encountered no difficulty in reconciling these conflicting views. Earlier last month in The Morning Star, Britain's Marxist daily, he simultaneously praised his multiculturalism policies and city officials' decision to eliminate regulations hindering London shopkeepers from flying gay pride flags."
No - there's no reconciliation whatsoever there. There is complete avoidance of the underlying incompatibility between the multicultural ethos and the basic tenets of classic liberalism. That's about as much of a reconciliation as standing between 2 opposing armies, praising both and then claiming to have reached a "reconciliation". But this is just the kind of issue that needs to come to the fore to force people to recognize the incompatibility of these 2 positions and to force them to choose sides.
Rebecca: "In my opinion, gays will need to drop their short-term demand for marriage for themselves in order to work toward saving civilization for all the people. Once we open the door to homosexual marriage, all barriers to polygamy fall as well."
I couldn't agree more. I used to have no objections at all to gay marriage until I recognized the slippery slope to polygamy, in the context of the current Islamic threat. Now I am staunchly opposed. It is the mark of mature adults to be capable of delayed gratification. I can only hope that the gay rights movement will demonstrate that maturity.
So Red Ken has to choose evil over decadence? What a choice! Unfortunately we can never defeat the absolutism of Islam by promoting decadence and secularism. We can only defeat the Muslim onslaught if Europe again becomes Cristendom, If India again becomes Hindutva, etc.
This is a religious war and we ought to admit it. If Osama accuses us of waging the 10th Crudade, then we ought to make his fantasy come true. Let's once again put a cross on top of the Dome of the Rock and fill the Kaaba with Ikons.
We won't force anyone to convert but Dhimmitude can be a two way street. Muslims in Europe should pay a jizya tithe to support Christian churches and live under every other restriction they've imposed on us throughout history. Maybe we can even take some of thier boys to be raised as Christian warriors. If we're going to win this war, we better get serious.
Perhaps we don't even have to go that far. We have the successful example of Saint Isabella of Castille as our model and our Hindu brothers have the example of Shivaji. May their memories be eternal!
Pravoslavni,
You want Europe to again be Christendom and India to be Hindutva [Bharata?]. But you seem to contradict thereby your anti-Israel position. The Land of Israel must be Israel, Zion; if you want to call Israel by the usual Greek and Roman name for the country Judea [IVDAEA] up to 135 CE, then that's OK too. But "palestine" is not justified as a name by the principle enunciated and espoused by you above. Recall that your holy book, the New Testament, calls our country the Land of Israel too [Matthew, chap 2].
Further, we cannot agree to placing another religion's symbol on the Dome of the Rock, which is of course the Temple Mount, the place of our ancient temple. Moreover, the rock under the dome was identified in Jewish tradition as the Even Shetiyyah, the Foundation Rock of the world, before Muslims/Arabs took over the site, as you should know. Do you agree that the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople should remain a mosque? Well, why should we accept a like fate for the Temple Mount?
As to livingstone, his officiating as the mayor of a city once esteemed for its role in civilization shows how corrupt the world has become, and not only Britain. Ken's lies are loathesome, or maybe he is partly mad. This is a very dangerous situation. Approving of Qaradawi is totally contemptible. Can't the sane people in the UK do something about Ken?
Eliyahu, Actually the Romans called the land Palestrina and this was the name of the province of the Christian Byzantine Empire (something I'd like to see restored). As for the Temple Mount, They tried to rebuild the Temple there when Julian the Apostate was emperor (late 4th Century) and God sent earthquakes to stop it. As a Christian I accept the prophecy of Jesus that the temple would be destroyed and never be rebuit by man. I think the Dome of the Rock ought to be open to Jews and Christians for prayer (yeah and Muslims too even if I don't like it) but the destruction of Herod's Temple by Titus and Vespacian was an act of finality for both Christians and Jews. This separation and finality was confirmed by New Testament for Christianity and by the Council at Jamnia for Judaism. That's why we are two separate Faiths(although brother-religions). Christians and Jews should live as friends and brothers but niether should compromise their faith or traditions
Pravoslavni,
Actually, the Romans called the Land of Israel "Judea" [IVDAEA] until emperor Hadrian changed the name to "Syria Palaestina" after he had defeated the Jews in the Bar Kokhba uprising. You could confirm this for yourself by reading Eusebios' Preparation for the Gospel, and Greek and Roman authors such as Plutarch, Suetonius, Tacitus, Strabo and Ptolemy the geographers, Pliny the Elder, etc. [Ptolemy uses the two names, "palaestina" and Judea, synonymously]. Read the New Testament and see that Matthew [chap 2] calls Israel "Land of Israel."
I am aware that the Roman empire after Hadrian, as well as its successor, Byzantium [East Roman empire] used the name "palaestina." Father Felix Abel, a Roman Catholic scholar, one of the important historians of the Land of Israel, in fact, points out that the name "palestine" was a Roman punishment for the Jews and was meant to serve Roman political purposes.
Pravoslavni, moy dobri tovarishch,
I am going to give you some concrete, graphic proof that the Romans called Israel "Judea" [IVDAEA]. The link below shows photos of a Roman document, that is, a Roman military diploma, which was two bronze plates inscribed with personal info about veterans of the legions. The diploma was given at discharge and showed where the veteran had served, commanders' names, his rights as a vet, something like US Army discharge papers and Veterans' Administration papers combined. This veteran had served in Judea [IVDAEA].
http://ziontruth.blogspot.com/2005/11/roman-documents-showing-judea-ivdaea.html
Eliyahu,
Thanks, I should have been more precise in what era I was writing about. You are correct that the Romans changed the name from Judea under Hadrian. Pilate was governor of Judea while the pathetic dynasty of the Herodians fancied themselves Kings of the Jews even though they were Edomean Arabs. After Hadrian it was called Syria Palaestina by the Romans including the Byzantines. The Muslims just considered it part of Syria while the Crusaders refered to the whole are as the Kingdom of Jerusalem. The name is really not that important since all have historical legitimacy. I personally have no issues with Israel, Palestine, Judea, Samaria, or the Holy Land as terms for the territory.
As for the cross, I was hearking back to the memory of the First Crusade when the cross was placed there. Salah al-Din taunted the Christian community by making them watch it being pulled down. As for the temple mount, I think that it should be open to both Jewish and Christian worshippers and not just to Muslim prayers as is the case now.
Herod's father was Antipater, an Edomite advisor to the last or one of the last kings of the Hasmonean [Maccabean] dynasty. The Edomites were not Arabs, but descended from Esau, Jacob's brother, according to Genesis. Later in the Torah, we see that the Edomites cooperated with Israel while Israel wandered in the desert before the conquest of Canaan. The Edomites were converted to Judaism before Herod's time and he was considered a Jew from a religious standpoint.
Herod's father was not an Arab, although his mother was an Arab, possibly the daughter of an Arab chieftain. Again, Herod was religiously considered a Jew, as were the Edomites [Idumaeans] as a whole.
To show the hostility between Jews and Arabs that early, one of Herod's wives who belonged to the Hasmonean dynasty, openly showed her contempt for her Arab mother-in-law. This is reported I believe by Josephus in either Antiquities or the Jewish War.
Further, the original Edomite tongue [preserved on a few inscriptions that have been found] was a form of Canaanite/Phoenician, and therefore not Arabic but very close to Hebrew, which is also linguistically considered a Canaanite tongue [either a dialect or a closely related language].