I’m following the twitter conversation about the American Atheists convention this weekend, and in particular Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s talk. She’s reported to have said this:
If you are gay the worst the Christian community can do in America is not serve you cake.…I just want you to think about being Muslim and gay today…the worst case scenario…bullies throw you off a building.
Fantastic. ‘Dear Muslima’ on the stage, from an ex-Muslim woman.
But in a bit of synchronicity, she’s neatly echoing the the sentiments of the right wing. From Tom Cotton, this week, on the discrimination bill in Indiana:
I think it’s important we have a sense of perspective. In Iran, they hang you for the crime of being gay.
Why is this so hard? Yes, being thrown off a building or hanged is worse than being denied a wedding cake — there is literally no comparison between the two, they are so far apart. But that does not mean that we should meekly accept the lesser injustice because of the threat of the greater; acceding to discrimination in the US does not diminish the odds of a gay man being murdered in Iran, and neither does fighting for equality here detract from a larger battle there. Both of these people are committing a kind of rhetorical extortion, using the threat of murder elsewhere as a club to silence those who strive for respect and dignity in their lives. And in that sense both Ali and Cotton are happily exploiting atrocities to justify continued injustices.
In Iran, they hang you for the crime of being gay.
Iranian gays should not be so quick to complain — after all, there are probably some places where gay people are killed in even more horrible ways.
“Dear Muslima” logic can be fun!
If she did say that, she not only minimizes the extent to which many Christians make life hell for gay people (as I said elsewhere, lawmakers in Florida are working to grant adoption agencies the right to discriminate against same-sex couples), she also doesn’t acknowledge that people of other religions (and some of no religion) do it too. This isn’t just a problem with christians.
Dear Matthew Shepard —
There is still violence against LGBT people in the United States. And it wasn’t so long ago that it was worse. As I see it, the way we are curing our society of that madness is to keep pushing for everyone to recognize that gay people are regular folks, with all the rights of regular folks. So being able to get served when going into a bakery is a part of society changing to stop violence against LGBT people.
I love “Dear Muslima” logic because it can be applied to everything:
Are you a dictionary atheist? Why complain about the “encroachment” of Atheism Plus when in Saudi Arabia you will be jailed, whipped or murdered for any disagreement with the state religion?
Are you a christian authoritarian? Why demand more prayer in schools when in Iraq any christian prayer anywhere will get your head chopped off?
Are you a libertarian parasite? Why complain about VAT when in North Korea private property is virtually non-existent?
…and so on and so forth.
A term I brought up a while back for this sort of thing: “Settling for second-worst.”
And as smarter people than I have pointed out many times, what on earth do they think they’re doing having an atheists’ convention and making a fuss about religion in schools and religious tax exemptions and the like – when there are people in other countries being imprisoned, beaten and murdered for their atheism?
You’d think they might notice …
OK, let’s find the one person who has suffered the worst possible violence in the entire world. Let’s trumpet his cause, and tell everybody else to shut the hell up because they don’t have it as bad as that guy.
opposablethumbs #7
Oh, they’ve noticed. It’s just they think that their right to babble about their worldview is more important that LGBT people’s right to form a family and be treated as a human being. They’d call that “priorities”.
Okay, you may have your morons, but their morons are even worse!
I would posit that fighting injustice anywhere helps injustice everywhere: the more people come to see injustice as unacceptable, the more people will work to stop it.
Every single time a fundie whines in public about how “oppressed” Christians are in this country these days, what with having to sometimes bake a cake for somebody they don’t like in their public business, or occasionally having their eyes momentarily alight upon a sign saying “You can be good without God” and all, we need to immediately get up in their face and tell them to get over it because in Iran and elsewhere in the mideast or Africa, Christians are being shot or beheaded! Demand to know why they’re sitting around complaining from their safe homes about the weak-tea secular “oppression” they’re imagining, when if they had the courage of their convictions they should go abroad and fight some REAL Christian oppression!
Jason Dick @11:
I agree with you!
I think for many of these there is the “advantage” that gay people are, at least in their world, mostly invisible in a way that people of colour or women aren’t. The fact that their attitude is what makes the discomfort of the closet the less unappealing option doesn’t seem to occur to them. Gay people aren’t people, they are a political prop to be wheeled out to show how liberal and inclusive you are, safe in the knowledge that you won’t have to deal with actual flesh and blood gay people openly disagreeing with you. It really is a case of saying “don’t punch them” to a bully when “all” they are doing is repeatedly towel flicking someone in the shower and then claiming you stood up for the oppressed. Saying be grateful your bullying isn’t worse is being part of the problem not part of the solution.
Apologies for the poorly thought out rant, I need more morning coffee.
… the American Atheists convention this weekend…
Kinda surprising Jamila Bey hasn’t had anything to say about that here – or about anything since informing us about the awesomeness of CPAC, which I guess she is still recovering from.
I think it’s important Cotton have a sense of perspective. In Kenya, Christians are oppressed by being massacred.
Apparently she doesn’t watch the news very carefully. Gay and trans- people regularly get assaulted and killed in the USA merely for being who they are, and it’s this atmosphere of exclusion created by people like the pizza bigots that encourages that.
So does that mean we shouldn’t fight against the ‘right’ of patriarchal American Levitican-Christian parents to force their lesbian daughters into abusive reeducation camps because patriarchal Muslim parents in other countries can get away with simply murdering their daughters for suspecting them of being gay?
No heroes!
how “oppressed” Christians are in this country these days
They should stop, because the Romans oppressed them worse, and were cruel to lions, besides.
These days, it always just reminds me of this SMBC comic.
Tom Foss #21
Your link doesn’t.
Did a gay person from Indiana say they’d rather live in Mosul?
That’s the only scenario where that would be appropriate.
@6 Bronze God – There is a thing called “Last Place aversion” … so … you’re right! (link here puts it in political terms .. ( http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2015/02/prosperity-vs-being-picked-last-in-gym.html )
Cenk rips her (and Sam Harris) here … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdFSohIW-0w
Let’s just push this idea as far as it goes and be done with it:
1) Somebody died today.
2) It may not have been a violent death and it’s not really important who died.
3) Generally speaking, dying is considered very very bad.
4) It is generally worse than virtually anything that might happen to anyone.
5) Therefore no complaining, ever. At least you’re still alive!
Perhaps the atheist thought leaders will observe a permanent moment of silence from now on, in deference to those worse off than them. Bloody ingrates.
Ah, yes, he’s pining for the coveted “Not as big a jerk as you could have been” award.
Yeah, I mean, tolerating bigotry in the West is of course necessary to stop brutal discrimination elsewhere… /s
Jason Dick #11
And that statement proves you are smarter than Richard Dawkins.
Oh no! What have I done? Now I will have to surrender my Atheist member card because I have insulted the Grand PooBah of Atheism!
LGBT violence in the US falls mostly on trans women.
http://www.advocate.com/politics/transgender/2015/02/20/miami-seventh-trans-woman-murdered-us-2015
Meanwhile, in Iran:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7259057.stm
Of course it’s still Iran, with all that implies.
Reminding people that others are worse off can be useful, sometimes a wider focus allows you do more good for more people. But pitting two cases against each others? Does supporting gay muslims provide any support for gays in the US? Does fighting “minor” injustices hurt other “more important” cases? We can’t all fight all the worlds injustices at the same time, nor can all be focusing on the “one worst”. Considering that far to many do nothing or even actively oppress people I seldom see any reason for criticizing people that are actually changing the world for the better.
A new meme!
● I think it’s important we have a sense of perspective. In France, they throw MUSHROOMS! at you for not eating cheese.
● I think it’s important we have a sense of perspective. On Mars, you die of dehydration because Congress only funded half the mission.
● I think it’s important we have a sense of perspective. In my head, you are completely worthless scum. Bring me my Cognac now, slave!
● I think it’s important we have a sense of perspective. At the Creation Museum, they don’t laugh at you for being an eejit.
● I think it’s important we have a sense of perspective. At the Creation Museum, they take your money and then throw you out if you aren’t an eejit.
● I think it’s important we have a sense of perspective. At Poopyhead’s blog, They allow comments like this.
Also, why so much fuss about educating our children and shit when so many children in the world work in slavery and don’t even get to go to school!?
Why complain about street safety when in in South America gang violence is the accepted norm for so many people?
Why complain about political corruption? You seen Indonesia!?
/s
Isn’t it past time to just conclude that Ali is part of the right wing?
Bronze Dog
Look at #24.
Thanks to Tpyos, you got a promotion.
@35 Chigau – I’m funniest and most helpful by accident ..
My favorite personal analogy :
How dare doctors treat broken legs, while there are people dying of cancer !
Loree@30: fascinating.
I’ve met a number of Iranians (and as soon as I scare up funding I’ll offer two of them jobs). All have been wonderfully generous and cheerful. I hope that as a country they figure out how to liberalize peacefully over the next few years. Unfortunately I’ve been hoping that for 15 years or so, while many Iranians have presumably been hoping it for even longer.
One thing about all the Iranians I’ve met: they all longed to visit home, but they all worked hard to be allowed to live in the West.
How odd that Myers fails to note that Cotton and Ali have opposite goals.
While they both wish to draw attention to the enormous gap of relative justice between being denied retail service and being killed, Cotton wants us to focus on the relative ‘smallness’ of the offense to gays caused by the Indiana law, while Ali hopes we pay special attention to the enormity of the offense to gays caused by Sharia Law in places like the Islamic State (and in over a dozen Muslim countries, too).
Cotton’s attempt to pose as an ally of gays is patently insincere. We have no reason to doubt Ali’s solidarity with LGBT people.
Shorter version of my above comment:
Ali to gay people: I am on your side. Remember that religious people want to harm you more than you can imagine.
Cotton to gay people: At least we Republicans aren’t trying to kill y’all!
@plutoanimus: Uh, no. Ali is not on the gays side. She’s telling them to stop whining.
This is bullshit of the highest order. There are still states where it is legal for parents to send their LGBT children to be tortured, only it is called reparative therapy. LGBT people are routinely bullied in the name of religion. People used their religion as an excuse to physically attack LGBT people. A huge percentage of homeless teens is a direct response of them being LGBT.
If only not being served cake was the worse that was done to LGBT people in the US, I could almost agree with her. But she is actively dismissing the real harm done to LGBT by the various christian communities in the US. And that is a dishonest arguing point.
Plutoanimus, I’ve never seen Ali have anything much to say about the conditions of life for LGBT people except when she can use us as weapons to brandish in her war against Islam. It is possible, in many ways, for someone to say “This is also a serious and important matter, a cause I support, even though my primary attention is on this other thing.” She never does any of them, that I’ve seen. I don’t want everyone to drop everything to deal with just my issues, because the world is full of real needs and valid concerns. But I do want anyone who wishes me to think of her as an Ali rather than as a user not to dismiss my issues, any more than I’d want her to callously dismiss class, ethnic, or other issues.
This is quite apart with all my other problems with her, starting with the idea that the most extreme reactionary form of a worldview is the most authentic and pure, and passing quickly on to her apparent unawareness that Wahhabism is exactly the kind of “Reformation” she wants Islam to have.
*facepalm* That should be “think of her as an ally”. This is what I get for writing while on DayQuil. :)
I’ve always had two issues with the “Dear Muslima” type argument:
1. It implies a thinly-veiled threat; See? We could do that to you. Be grateful for what you have and don’t complain.
2. Like the Pope claiming, after the Charlie Hebdo shootings, that he’d punch you in the nose for criticizing his mother (standing in for his faith) but not shoot you, it suggests that the problem is not bigotry and oppression themselves but rather the extent to which bigotry and oppression are allowed to be practiced. It’s like saying, It’s okay to hate gays (women, etc.) just keep your hate to a socially acceptable level.
In Wyoming, they crucify you.
A piece of generally good advice, albeit one that Ms. Ali would do well to take to heart:
If you find that your attempt to score rhetorical points makes you sound like an idiot, you might do well to try and score your points in some other way.
As pointed out above LGBT folk still face serious threats of violence, loss of housing, employment, ostracism and so on. Those in the fire might envy those in the frying pan, but in the end, both are cooked.
Such a nice lady. She spoke at a right wing stink tank conference several years ago in Sydney. When asked her opinon of creationists she said they should all be killed.
What sambarge said (#45).
Also, people who do Dear Muslima should stop and think about how their message is being received by the “lesser” oppressors. In the case of Ali’s quote, she needs to think about how her message is sounding to people like Governor Pence or the creators of these RFRA bills.
Gay people are being discriminated against and her response is to make the oppressors seem not so bad.
Why is the Middle Excluded?
This sort of “spend time criticizing people who criticize things you don’t think are important” never made much sense to me.
I mean, by the same logic, for critics’ critics they are complaining that they might one day sell a cake to a gay person. Surely there are people who have it just a tad bit worse, no?
I used to admire Ayaan Hirsi Ali, but then I started to read some of the things she has said.
She’s a bonefide “New Atheist” who advocates violence against all Muslims. Many “New Atheists” think that’s brave, rational, and reasonable. I don’t.
Reminds me of someone:
http://devinlenda.blogspot.jp/2014/08/dawkins-not-just-dick-also-stupid.html
devinlenda
Good post.
“…….while Ali hopes we pay special attention to the enormity of the offense to gays caused by Sharia Law in places like the Islamic State (and in over a dozen Muslim countries, too).”
How odd that plutoanimus doesn’t notice that Ali does this by minimizing the struggles of LGBT here in the U.S.
As though it’s a zero sum game.
So she minimizes the plight of Americans here. Just like Cotton. Your point again?
Why do you do this, PZ? Nowhere does she say that wedding cake is not a good fight, a proper fight, a necessary fight.
No one is saying we should meekly accept a lesser injustice because of a greater elsewhere. No one is even implying you should be silent about any level of injustice.
You Americans are in constant need of being reminded that there is an entire world out beyond your inward narcissistic vision. A world in which there are horrid injustices to which you daily turn a blind eye.
These Dear Muslima messages are not calls for silence or inaction on your part but are calls for greater awareness and greater action on everyone’s part.
Wedding cake is a good fight, a proper fight, a necessary fight but it is not the only fight. And when someone reminds you that wedding cake is not the only particular in this fight your overblown hyper-sensitive American ego gets offended (rhetorical extortion, my ass), you cram words in her mouth and belittle her broader vision.
Instead of being sensitive to her message you insult, you belittle, you tell her and the rest of the world you don’t give a damn.
“… happily exploiting atrocities to justify continued injustices.” Insufferable, insensitive, selfish little bore.
Enceladus, maybe it’s an American thing (though I seriously doubt it is) but that phrasing is a crystal clear way of insinuating that the fight against inequality here in the United States is petty and selfish because somewhere, someone else has it worse… as if we don’t care about those other people. As if we cannot be concerned about more than one thing at a time. It implies that the people fighting the at-home injustice are whining about something unimportant.
“Remember, if you have celiac’s the worst you face is some intestinal upset, but remember, there are people out there with colon cancer.”
Encedalus @ 56
No, words don’t have implications. Positioning “the worst” that a given group does in a given context isn’t meant to compare or contrast what another group does in similar context. And of course landmasses as large as the U.S. couldn’t have massively disparate treatments of similar groups of people.
Fuck you, fuck you, and fuck you.
Upon further consideration, I would like to add the following: fuck you.
Apologies for mispelling enceladus’s name.
Encedalus:
Please fuck off, neocon. Those who’ve lavished praise on Ayaan Hirsi Ali include Richard Dawkins, SamHarris, Bill Maher, The Norwegian mass murderer, & Chapel Hill gunman.
Please, don’t insult us.
Hi Enceladus
European person here. Nope, she is still.wrong and so are you. I get the exact same shit whenever i complain about the mandatory christian elements in our public school system as an atheist and so do the muslim parents, many of whom have fled islamist theocracies.
Convince bank of America to cancel every christians’ account, and then come back and discuss discrimination with me.
If Ayaan Hirsi Ali were making a show of solidarity for the American queer population, she would not have to lie about what we face from Christian communities.
Is it time we officially dub this type of reasoning the Dear Muslima fallacy?
Can’t get served, can be denied medical aid, can be denied your loved ones if you’re in the hospital. Etc etc. Its not as if you’ve had your honey jar confiscated.
違う、thanks.
@jaybee #8
It’s probably a child, probably a girl.
And as for wedding cakes, again people love to ignore the LGBT* teen suicide and homeless rates. Oh don’t worry about your life being hell! Don’t worry that you’ve been kicked out on the streets by your own loving parents! Don’t worry that you’ve spent the second half of your life seriously considering ending it! On the other side of the world there are people like you who have governments to do it for them!
AHA a
screechymonkey
Hey, I wanted to say that! The fact she was associated with the right-wing American Enterprise Institute should tell everything you need to know.
plutoanimus
Wow, we have ourselves a genuine mind-reader in our midst!
enceladus
And another one! What a great day to be alive.
Seriously, why should we assume that she is pro-LGBT rights? Like most of the right wing atheists she only uses minority rights as a weapon against muslims, but nothing more.
I am European, and I perfectly agree with the assessment of the OP.
Yes, we should be sensitive to her message that contains a whopper of a lie and which throws a minority under the bus.
Fuck off, bigot.
Seems to me that the implication of this sort of thing is always “Oh, you don’t have to have full equality. This sort-of-equality is good enough for you. After all, it’s not as if you ever had full equality to miss, so you’re just being greedy.”
Giliell @ #61:
“Mandatory christian elements” makes me imagine a Dick Button voiceover: “Well, he two-footed the landing on that triple catechism, but leaving out the Nicene Creed is what’s really going to bring his score down.”
Bullshit. Even in the most tolerant of places you are always at risk of encountering a homophobic, violent piece of shit, or a group of them….in America and everywhere else….
Also, how the fuck is living in a society that feels that it is ok to deny you services for a single characteristic of yours, something that you can brush off like it’s nothing? Oh yes, you might have to live with the knowledge that anywhere you go, you are a second class citizen, that even when you are in the company of educated, progressive people, or even your close friends, you have to put up with a few jokes or certain comments, because if you become too snooty and demand being treated with respect, they can turn off the acceptance and turn on the abuse at any fucking time they like, and not even realise that’s what they are doing.
“My friend is gay and he doesn’t care if i call him a fag in good fun, why are you so fucking uptight?”
“Your friend knows this is what happens if he dares to complain”.
And that’s pretty much the best fucking scenario you can usually hope for. Most of the time, it doesn’t even get that good…But hey, could be worse, right….
Thank you, Ayaan, for making me feel guilty that i’m not afraid for my life anymore, like i was when i was a kid.
enceladus @56
The Dear Muslima arguments are exclusively used as calls to silence lesser complaints. Do you even fucking remember Dear Muslima? It was used to silence and nothing else.
I’m glad you’ve shut down the people who think “wedding cake” is the only fight we should be waging. Now if you will point me to the people saying that I will yell at them too, because those people are idiots, assuming the exist outside of your own head.
Let me get this straight…
Being stabbed in the face is worse than stepping on a rusty nail.
Okay. I’ll buy that. Fair enough. Yep, getting stabbed in the face is worse than stepping on a rusty nail.
But why, exactly, is that an argument against sweeping up all these fucking rusty nails?
They are calls to shut the fuck up about that topic bigot a considers small/irrelevant. Why are you suckered into thinking otherwise?
Wow. So awareness. Much empathy. Not insulting. Very ally.
Ah yes, the good old, “Heck, anyone else would steal your wallet *after* shooting you in the head. We only steal your wallet!”, defense.
Even if true (and it’s not: unless ‘conversion therapy,’ people being bullied to the point of suicide, constant attempts to enact laws which treat LGBT people as second-class citizens, and a whole host of other things are figments of the imagination), so what? It’s easy to make it sound trivial when it’s a cake. What happens when the person refusing service is the owner of the local grocery store, petrol station, or suchlike provider of non-luxuries?
Not to mention that the fight against USAmerican Evangelicals is a huge part of the fight against similar organisations around the world. Because, to a large part [pdf link], those organisations are backed by US money and US rhetoric.
wings @71
You’re either not funny or a bigot. Either way, fuck off.
Wings, I dont know what you were trying to do with that comment but fuck off in advance.
#71, either cite your source, or shut the fuck up. We don’t tolerate lies and bullshit here.
Wings is probably referring to a book by Stephen Jimenez claiming that Shepard was killed because of a drug deal that went wrong. Media Matters has a strong criticism of Jimenez’s speculation:
There is a book by Stephen Jimenez that argues Shepard’s death was the result of a dispute over drugs and money and, rather than his sexual orientation being a cause, he may even have had a casual sexual relationship with one of the convicted murderers. Here’s a review in The Guardian.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/14/matthew-shepard-murder-wyoming-book
Naturally, Shepard is a more complex character (as are his murderers) than the rhetoric of “angelic, gay man” and “trollish, murderous homophobes”. I don’t know how good Jimenez’s work is. From the article:
Like most things, the truth is harder to determine than you would first imagine. I’ve never read the book so I can’t say how well he makes his argument.
That said, right-wing, anti-gay groups have jumped on Jimenez’s findings to discredit the Shepard story and The Laramie Project. Looks like Wings has drank their Kool-Aid.
The Jiminez books sounds like a presupposition in search of evidence, not good fact-finding. It should not be considered reliable, except by True Bigots™. Wings, you showed your hand.
@ 67
Oh, don’t worry, the right-wingers haven’t forgotten! That’s why they’re all too happy to cite them to prove how immoral and unnatural their lifestyle choices are to justify bigotry.
One of the things that disturbs me about the ‘Dear Muslima’ attitude, is the concept that we have to prioritize issues and then address them one at a time. I realize that it has a lot to do with capturing attention for issues and then focusing resources on those that are most important to that person, but come on, we can multitask.
Is it time we officially dub this type of reasoning the Dear Muslima fallacy?
The Dawkins Fallacy has a nice ring to it. Not that he invented it, of course — he merely popularized it to millions.
Nailed it.
In reading these comments and the common complaint that is the base of the post. Do not complain because it is worse some where else. I Am just left speechless in reaction how does that make sense? It is just such a stupid thing to say!
Then it occurred why it sounds so stupid to me. I reminds me of the messages that were broadcast during WWII by Japan aimed at the soldiers by “Tokyo Rose”. The sole aim was to sap the moral of those who are fighting against Japan. In this case the aim is exactly the same. In any great struggle you can only engage with who fate has put you in front of. Your particular fight may not be the biggest most important in the whole struggle but it is a part and necessary and important in that light. Those opposed know this very well even if they do not acknowledge it, some may even believe that the small fights do not matter much. (see some from do the right thing). That is not how things actually work when you take the time to look at it.
uncle frogy
Wings, please fuck off, you neocon.
You don’t need to speak eloquently in order to appeal to the lowest common denominator. Dear New Atheists, here’s Ayaan calling for the genocidal extermination of ALL Muslims. It’s why you love her. http://t.co/LxaoM0hJSH
#56 enceladus
As a non-American, I can say that in my opinion this kind of Dear Muslima argument helps no one. If anything, it promotes xenophobia, which definitely doesn’t help the Rest of the World.
* * *
#82 sambarge
The Graun has been criticized for uncritically promoting Jimenez’s theory.
<blockquote cite"But that does not mean that we should meekly accept the lesser injustice because of the threat of the greater"
She never did this. This is you simply putting words in her mouth. She just made a statement (and a very true one) that gay people in a predominantly Muslim society have it worse than gay people living in Christian societies. She didn't say that we shouldn't care about gay people, and their rights, in America. Please don't put words in her mouth. There is nothing wrong with making an observation that some people in some cultures have it objectively worse than other people in other cultures.
It is, if it used, as it was, to essentially say “shut the fuck up about your complaints”. That is our argument. Not that others don’t have it harder than in the US. But the US still has a way to go to be non-discrimatory.
Colin Wright, shut the fuck up and start listening. You sound like a rabid neocon.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali was the keynote speaker at the American Atheist Convention. Every New Atheist knows her story. But you see, it’s not her story New Atheists want to hear. They want to be made afraid of Islam, so it justifies their hate.
So shut the fuck up, neocon.
Yes there is something wrong with it, Colin Wright – it’s at best, at absolute best, a total fucking irrelevance – and that’s giving all the benefit there is to give of all the doubts there are to ponder. And in reality, it’s a dismissive silencing tactic. You think we haven’t seen before how this goes, ffs?
If what she wants to concentrate on is the oppression of gay people in Muslim societies, then she should absolutely focus all the energy she can on that campaign and she’ll get nothing but support from me. If what she wants to do is use the oppression of gay people in Muslim societies briefly and temporarily as a rhetorical device to dismiss and silence gay people getting bullied at school, beaten up, thrown out by their families or sent off to brutal, dangerous “therapy” then I don’t think that’s cool.
This kind of comparison has got everything wrong with it – because it does no good to anybody except the xtian bigots. She’s not calling for support for gay people in Muslim-dominated countries; she’s calling for the dismissal of attacks on gay people in xtian-dominated ones.
Some people never seem to learn that what happens in the USA is far more important than what happens elsewhere. They just don’t get it, do they? This lady, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, seems to think that being stoned to death, mutilated, or shot in some obscure place in the Middle East should cause us more concern than a US citizen not being served cake or pizza! Who do they think they are?
Thank you, Cosimo, for ignoring the fact that not being served cake by christians is not even close to the worst think that can happen to LGBT people in the US.
Please, do not bother to remove you binders. Live is just fine for all of us here.
Cosimo, I am sure that you are personally working to end such atrocities in the Middle East to all of your ability. What city are you writing to us from, as you clearly would be most effective in the area most affected. Do you need care packages as you fight the most important fight? I’m sure all here would pitch in to get you anything you need that you can’t get from Iran, Iraq, or whichever Middle East country in which you currently reside.
I look at the evidence, and here in the US we have home-grown Xian terrorists sowing bigotry, hatred, and violence upon those they disagree with. They I can do something about, and they are an immediate threat.
I can’t control what happens in the Middle East. Nor can I really help the situation. They have their own home-grown terrorists they have to deal with.
If you are gay the worst the Christian community can do in America is not serve you cake…
Perhaps Hirsi Ali feels that anyone doing worse than not-serving-cake to a gay person is, by definition, No True Christian™.
And isn’t it odd how many American-bashers in this thread accusing commenters of putting words in AHA’s mouth have to invent, paraphrase, or disregard the words actually quoted?
“Dear Muslima” is also known as the Fallacy of relative privation
@garydargan #48 I smell bullshit.
No lies here. Citation or fuck off.
There is very little I can, personally, do for a persecuted gay person in Iran.
But maybe I can actually help a gay person in my neighborhood who is having problems with bigots. Give them support or at least a friendly face in an unfriendly culture.
Of course, since I can’t help the former, I should clearly not do anything about the second since they don’t have it as bad. Sure, that totally makes sense.
It also conveniently lets us all sit on our arse doing nothing.
I want all of Ali’s defenders on this thread to understand that Ali is a neocon who believed* in promoting Christianity in Muslim states. And then understand that dominionism–the ideology of Christian theocracy–is alive and well in the U.S.A.
Yes, bills like this one, submitted to the California AG, are not going to pass here. That one won’t even get enough signatures to make it on the ballet. But don’t assume that Ali is just trying to make an obvious point about how things are much worse elsewhere. She’s making a broader argument, one that holds that calls for social justice in Western nations are no more than whining by spoiled whiny whiners, and we all need to focus on the Threat to Western Civilization posed by Islamism.
* Past tense because she may have backed off from this stand. Not sure.
I would like Ali to explain how a gay person being refused service at a restaurant in America is supposed to help a gay person being pushed off a building in an ISIL-controlled district.
She is literally trying to guilt an oppressed class in one country for not helping an oppressed class in another country.
Also, she is aware that in some parts of the world women are literally beaten and burned to death for the accusation of insulting Islam. So does this mean her objection to the abuse she received/receives from some Muslims is no longer valid?
Colin Wright
Well, Colin, let’s see those very true words again:
With ‘true statement’, you mean ‘whopper of a lie’, right? Otherwise that would make you a fucking dishonest liar too.
Apparently, all incidents of gays not getting served cake:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_violence_against_LGBT_people_in_the_United_States
Could people make up their minds whethet American Atheists, wjo were after all the adressees of this message, are a smart and educated bunch, sciency and much better than those ignorant christians or whether they are ignorant hillbillies who dont know that there is an actual world outside their borders?
And when they are done with that, could somebody tell me why all of us europeans seem to be invisible?
Giliell,
They can’t see us from all the Muslim immigrants taking over Europe.
To all supporters of Hirsi Ali:
US Christians homophobes gave significant support to Ugandan anti-gay laws.
But hey, why try to stop the homophobes at home when in Uganda the situation is so much worse?
@Marcus Ranum #86
Yes, I though the same.
I wonder if it could be possible to Google Bomb this into becoming used more often.
@opposablethumbs #94
This.
Thank you for spelling it so clearly.
@Saad #104
Thank you for stressing the guilt feature that I had overlooked.
Yes, I really don’t understand this zero-sum game argument.
I’m not a big fan of twitter quotes, so I went on a hunt for the original speech. For those curious, it’s on Youtube. There’s a part I can’t be sure what’s being said, which I marked as [inaudible], even though it might be perfectly understandable for people with more skilled ears.
This ticked me off enough to finally post this.
So the LGBT in the US faces the subtle discrimination of being denied cake in shadows?
Janine the Jackbooted Emotion Queen wrote:
Not to mention the fact this “therapy” has lead to a lot of suicides. Frankly, the fact that the Christian theocrats were not the ones directly pulling the trigger ending these kids’ lives doesn’t mean they didn’t kill them.
zenlike wrote:
Well, it’s terribly inappropriate given the seriousness of the topic, but all I can think of when you posted this was Eddie Izzard’s “Cake or Death” joke.
Reading that extended quote (110) her argument is even more silly. She is discussing the difference between xtian and muslim religions by what they get away with in different countries. Can I point out that the worst muslims can get away with in the US is the same as the worst that xtians can get away with, whatever that may be.
@Marcus Ranum: I enthusiastically second calling it “Dawkins Fallacy”, first because the Dawk is such a proponent of rational thinking and should be taken to task for such a ridiculous argument, and second because it does ring wonderfully, even if I’m partial to call it “Argumentum Ad Muslima”.
I noticed that searching for the term mostly pulls out religious apologist arguments, I wonder if google bombing the term would be a good thing.
I think one massive thing being ignored by the people committing the, “fallacy of relative privation”, is that the people who **are** worse can look at how we treat people and proclaim, “They believe the same as us, look how many things they deny these sinner too, but we are better, because we are not cowards about it, but actively seek to rid society of the ‘threat’.” You can’t claim that apposing justice for people, because they are, “not as bad off as someplace else”, has a neutral impact on the arguments being made in the place where they are being treated worse. For example – back in the days of slavery, its highly unlikely that “good treatment” of them, as apposed to beating them, or allowing some people to go free, while still allowing the practice, did much of anything to promote an “end” to the practice. So, only beating up, or starving, or yes, even not serving someone a wedding cake, isn’t going to do a damn thing, at all, by being a “milder form” of the same hate and bigotry, to help the cause of the same people being stoned to death some place else.
No, in fact, what you will get is, “Americans think they are sinner too. We are just more rational about what to do about them!” (i.e., killing them is better than just not serving them.) So, yeah… there is no way to make such an argument without making yourself a total idiot.
Lady Mondegreen, #100
Thanks for that info.
Has anyone ever known anyone who was bundled off to Exodus Ministries? Have you seen how cruel life is for LGBTQ people living in red states? If you have and you aren’t horrified, you’re a bigot. If you are willfully ignorant, you’re no better. You are not an ally. American Atheists are not allies to LGBTQ Americans, atheist or otherwise.
LGBT Americans are not all well off sassy white men like the ones you see on TV, AA supporters. They are not merely doing without cake. To say something like that is dishonest and blatantly bigoted. I cannot believe people have the gall to argue otherwise.
We do kill LGBTQ people here in the US. My cousin brutally took his own life because he could not live as openly gay and have a family or any of the friends he grew up with. His suicide note told about all the pain he had been in. That’s only one way we kill LGBTQ people in the US.
Jackie the social justice WIZZARD!!! @118
AA are not allies to anyone who aren’t cis-hetro, able, white males politically to the right of Genghis Khan. The only major disagreement between Bill O’Reilly and Dave Silverman is religion.
“If you are gay the worst the Christian community can do in America is not serve you cake” – I know she’s a blatant liar, but this is breathtaking.
In most of the US, the Christian community can get you fired from your job, prevent you from being married and take away your children. The Christian community is fighting tooth and nail for the right to deprive LGBT folks of basic civil rights. When they can’t openly advocate murdering them here, the Christian community exports their think tankers to places like Uganda, throwing moral and economic support behind laws that would in fact support the state execution of gays.
The Christian community also has a decades-long history of terrorism against abortion providers, family planning organizations and women seeking abortion.
Fuck her and her privileged, bigoted Dear Muslima bullshit. As many have already pointed out, American atheist figureheads – primarily white straight dudes – scream bloody murder when an American high school holds a prayer before football games, and they’d lose their shit if anyone told them to STFU because atheists in some countries are executed. But telling LGBT people to be grateful for whatever they have, why, that’s totes OK.
Sambarge wrote:
“It implies a thinly-veiled threat; See? We could do that to you. Be grateful for what you have and don’t complain.”
Hilarious. Ali is threatening to kill gay people? Now I’ve heard it all.
@plutoanimus #122
It’s certainly less ridiculous than your assertion that she’s trying to “ally” with us queer folk. You have yet to address why she would have to lie so blatantly about how we are treated in the U.S. if she’s trying to say she’s on our side.
Ali to gay people: I am on your side.
Where, please, did she say this, @plutoanimus? It seems to me that you are putting words in her mouth, since what she actually said is that the worst thing that Christians can do to LGBTs in the United States is to refuse to serve them cake. I’m fascinated with the idea that minimizing ongoing and at times murderous bigotry is some kind of bold declaration of allyhood. And, as others have pointed out, she seems awfully quiet about violent homophobia in non-Muslim countries, like Uganda (a strongly Christian nation that has tried to pass laws to execute gays, and which has extremely punitive laws that fall far short) and Russia.
You must have extremely minimal standards for viewing someone as being on your side.
It always is tricky to speculate about someone’s motives, but knowing Ali’s agenda, it is safe to assume that her main cause was to make Islam look bad. I don’t think she is very interested in LGBT issues at all.
You’re probably right. So it’s really shitty to throw them under the bus for what she presumably thought was her rhetorical advantage.
Also, LGBT does (nominally) include trans people. Trans women of colour have a death rate in the US that makes Ebola envious. And the system colludes with not even calling it murder. Then they’re misgendered by authorities and media, and the murderer gets away with the whole foul thing because “it came on to me” is still an allowed defence.
So fuck Ali’s blindness to reality anyway. LGBT people HERE in North America are dying because we’re seen as outsiders. When will she stop worrying primarily about those far away, and begin learning how her statement is just cis supremacy in action – start worrying about the murders in her own glass house?
Given that it doesn’t serve her anti-Muslim bigotry, my guess is “never”.
rietpluim @125
Yes, if her intent was to spread awareness for LGBT Muslim issues, she would have made her speech about them and their struggles without even mentioning Indiana in comparison. Her speech was not about LGBT folks; it was about how evil Muslims are, and she did so by making a pithy comment about the US LGBT community as if our fight is only for cake.
toska, #128
That sums it up perfectly.
melanie
Please read my comment again, then your comment, and tell me who sounds “rabid”. If you want to be taken seriously and have an adult conversation, you can’t just go around telling people to “shut the fuck up”. That’s how you get ignored. I wish you the best of luck navigating the world of differing opinions. Given your attitude, you are going to have a tough time.
zenlike
She was referring to what can be done LEGALLY to oppress gay people. In the USA gay people have limited rights, and more recently in Indiana people can choose not to serve gay people. However, it is still illegal to murder or harm or steal from, etc., a gay person, just like every other person. The same cannot be said of some countries that abide by Sharia Law. Gay people don’t have the same protections under the law that gay people have in the States.
Colin Wright, unless you are a queer person in the US, you have no fucking idea what you’re talking about. Just no. Fucking. Clue.
Colin, #91
Now read this:
I can understand if someone is analyzing an issue, it makes sense to see where it is worse. But note that in that quote she is addressing gay people in America. Why is she saying that TO the American gay people?
How would this sound being said to a cancer patient in the U.S.:
If you have cancer in the U.S. you can go to the doctor and have treatment… I just want you to think about having cancer while living in a very poor underdeveloped country where you’ll just die and not get treated.
Would you say that to a cancer patient? If so, what point would you be making to them?
Colin, #131
Yes, but why is she saying that to American gay people?
That’s what makes it totally Dear Muslima. Some of Dawkins’ statement could also have been okay. But he made a comparison and he addressed the comparison directly to someone who had objected to sexism/harassment. Why? Why do that if not either to kick someone who’s already down or to silence that person by saying “you think you have it bad huh?”
#131 Colin Wright
Murdering and stealing are always illegal acts, by definition of these words. This makes the statement tautological and meaningless in practice.
Harm is vague. As I noticed in another thread, killing by starvation is not considered harm from a libertarian point of view. I imagine bullying into suicide isn’t either, for many people.
doki
Then change the word “murder” to “killing innocent people” and the word “stealing” to “taking other people’s possessions without consent.” You know exactly what I meant in my comment, and are simply arguing some strange technicality in order to avoid my comment altogether.
Oh, your non-sequitur that needs no response, being utterly and totally refuted before you make any claims? You aren’t paying attention. Those of us here understand the need to clean up our own areas before trying to clean up other countries and religions. Why can’t you see that? Your hero blinders?
What’s strange is introducing some technicality of your own about legality. Gay people are in fact treated badly here, even when those acts are illegal. And it shouldn’t be legal for businesses to discriminate on the basis of sexuality, although that also happens. You can also ask yourself how moral our law enforcement and criminal justice systems are, even when it comes to the laws that we do/should actually have: they’re often not good at all. So it’s all kinds of fucked up to treat that like a relatively good thing, and confusions about legality aren’t helpful for indicating who actually has it worse. If there were a clear and reliable way of comparing their lives to one another, that is not it.
The fact that some other country has different laws, which we don’t get to decide, has no relevance to that. We shouldn’t have the systems in the US that we do. They shouldn’t have the systems that they do. Both are fucking rotten. We don’t elect their governments or vote on their laws, so the idea our attention should be directed over there and away from our own broken system is fucking pointless. It’s not a good idea. What we’re apparently supposed to do is (1) ignore or misrepresent our own problems, (2) deny them their right to govern themselves by effectively taking over, or (3) simply murder them all in yet another war. Whatever the fucking point is, those would all be making things worse.
Of course, murdering gay people is pretty illegal in many predominantly muslim countries as well and many western countries will NOT accept you asylum claims based on your sexual orientation. Because they’re safe in the books. Whether a lynch mob will murder you or your parents will sell you in marriage to get you raped straight while authorities are looking the other way is another issue.
Much like the fact that trans* women are murdered in the USA without the police as much as lifting a finger.
#136 Colin Wright
Actually, I sincerely don’t. I’ve seen extremes where the word murder is metaphorically used to include lawful killing (in which case the US is one of those countries where it is “legal to murder”), to other extremes where one considers it harmless to let someone starve to death, or die of thirst (and, therefore “not murder”). If we use the word loosely, I can’t be sure which meaning you’re employing. For example, I think bullying someone because of their gender identity or sexual orientation until they take their own lives has the same end result as murder. I’ve read of this sort of thing happening in the US and the UK without punishment. Is murder legal, then?
Now, to be clear, I know the situation is much better in the US than in Saudi Arabia. I know I can tread on the former, but not in the latter. Moreover, I don’t think that the sort of attitude represented by “there’s nothing we can do about gays in those Muslim countries” is helpful. How can we help is a discussion I’d much rather have than this one.
However, I think it is harmful too to paint the picture in the US as rosier than it is, and I think that’s exactly what you’re doing.
(and, on a more personal note, I resent every kind of general Christianity v. Islam comparison that completely overlooks what happens in more repressive Christian countries)
By “strange technicality” you mean “the correct meaning of words in the English language.” It’s a curious accusation against someone attempting to speak your language. I’m damned if I do, damned if I don’t.
PZ could be reading too much into this. Was this an off-hand comment that she made to *emphasize* the horribleness of being gay in Iran, or to belittle it here.
Seems more likely to me that it was the former, which would make this whole post basically a moot point. But I haven’t seen or heard the talk.
pablohoney #141
Thank you for sharing that.
Really.
Bless your heart.
pablohoney @141:
The comment does both.
It stresses the horrible situation gay people face in Iran and at the same time minimizes the homophobia in USAmerica.
It’s very much a Dear Muslima-like comment. She tells us to have some perspective on the situation. Which is her way of saying that homophobia in the U.S. isn’t as big a deal as homophobia in Iran. Which is another way of dismissing or downplaying anti-gay bigotry in the U.S.
Try to keep up.
pablohoney,
The only thing this means is that gay people don’t have it so bad in America.
Sorry you are finding such a simple sentence so confusing.
I really doubt her intent is to minimize gay rights here in the states. She is more offering perspective, saying that it is by speaking out that gay rights has improved here, so we need to support such rights globally. She is saying that homosexuals and secular ethics in general need our support in the middle east.
Try to understand what someone really stands for, rather than over reacting to isolated quotes.
Yet I can’t do anything about homosexuals in the Middle East, but can do something about them here at home. It’s all a distraction: Look at this big problem you can’t do anything about, and shut the fuck up about this small one you can work on and solve. Anybody can see that. Why can’t you?
Because I’m looking at what her stated goals are. Whether you agree or not, she believes that segments of liberals ignore human rights violations done in the name of Islam. That doesn’t make her a villain. At worst, she is wrong. But I think it’s a worthwhile debate. Better to have the discussion. I just think it is common for people to villainize those that have different opinions, instead of engaging dialogue with good intention. Dismissing her experiences and optionions just because you disagree with her conclusions?
Total fuckwittery.
What discussion? Islam is evil, kill them all? Xianity is the biggest problem for those in the USA, not Islam. On the world stage, Islam is too busy fighting within itself to be a coherent evil.
Kill them all? I can’t agree with that conclusion. No sane non-paranoid person would.
Oh, and I do dismiss the distraction tactic. That is used on children, not adults, but AHA, Richard Dawkins, and other “leaders” seem to think we are children. When they should shut the fuck up and listen if they were real leaders.
She doesn’t say “kill them all”. You can quote mine from her past in an attempt to misrepresent her, but that is not her stance.
There can be no dialogue of value when people constantly misrepresent the views of others so as to fit their own narrative. You are in attack mode rather than dialogue mode.
I wish people could discuss disagreements instead of vilifying their opponent. Doesn’t seem like that is the case here.
And you are in preaching mode. Dismissed.
Ah, tone troll. Who the fuck cares what you have to say? You don’t determine how we behave. Especially when dealing with extremists within the atheist movement. You talk to them. I have better ways to spend my time than talking to preachers who aren’t listening to response, just preaching their bigotry and paranoia.
Bigotry? I am not aware of displaying any. Nor am I aware of being paranoid. Of what?
And maybe you could enlighten me on how to express an opposing opinion in a less preachy manner? I’m new here, and this being a “freethoughtblog”, I guess my assumption was that an exchange of ideas and a discussion might take place, rather than baseless name calling. I was apparently wrong about that.
I didn’t come here with insults. I made an attempt to make one simple point: it is intellectually dishonest to misrepresent someone’s views. I would give the same courtesy to anybody, to try to understand what they actually stand for. I don’t think Ayaan is anti gay. She wasn’t criticizing support for gay rights here in the states. She was attempting to convey that the same amount of passion for gay rights should extend globally. I don’t care if you disagree with her. I haven’t made a strong statement one way or the other on that. I just think she should be debated on what her actual point is.
And as for being a “troll”, your ugly words are more troll-like than anything I’ve said here. My bad for expecting better from a “free-thought” blog.
Freethought doesn’t mean every idea:
Your lack of empiricism is showing.
You are arguing for dialog with those who are Islamophobic, misogynist, and other types of bigots and bullies. WHY?
We have heard their drivel time and time again. We also know they aren’t listening. You can’t have a dialogue with people who aren’t listening. What makes you think you can? Empirical evidence (citation) needed.
You haven’t demonstrated that. All you have done is wanked your opinion.
Timmy Utley #145:
If that was her intent, she is a very very clumsy speaker, since she quite obviously did minimise the threats to gay rights and gay lives in the US. And not in an off-the-cuff remark, but in a prepared speech. Quite simply, given her rather dubious history of dishonesty and of her hawkish, right-wing stances, I’m not prepared to give that much benefit of the doubt.