Originally appeared May 31, 2002, in The Washington Blade.
Syndicated columnist Mubarak Dahir recently slammed "several gay writers," whom he did not identify, for using the assassination of Dutch gay politician Pim Fortuyn as an excuse to demonize Muslims. He charges that these writers "have even marked followers of Islam as responsible for Fortuyn's demise, if not his actual murder."
As one of the writers in question, I must dispute Dahir's characterizations. Dahir, usually a more accurate writer, offers no evidence that anyone has blamed Muslims for Fortuyn's murder. He fails to quote anything that columnist Paul Varnell or I wrote in our Fortuyn essays. He refers to "gay writers masquerading as experts on the Dutch political system," as if we could not possibly be informed on the subject, and as if only experts approved by him have a right to comment. This is merely a ploy to avoid seriously addressing our arguments.
Dahir suggests that there has been no similar criticism of Christians, despite the fact that the religious leaders most often criticized by gay Americans are the Reverends Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. Dahir asserts that "few mainstream religious leaders of any faith openly embrace us," whereas a number of Protestant denominations perform gay weddings and ordain gay ministers. Where are the gay-affirming Muslims?
I once dated a devout Muslim who expressed anger at the portrayal of Muslims as terrorists, while he himself celebrated the murder of the Japanese translator of Salman Rushdie's novel The Satanic Verses. He insisted that he did not have to read the book in order to make conclusions about it, and that no one had the right to commit blasphemy.
When Martin Scorsese released his film of the Nikos Kazantzakis novel The Last Temptation of Christ, there were indeed cries of blasphemy by theocratic Christians who demanded that the film be banned. But unlike censors in Muslim countries, the fundamentalists are not in charge here, and filmgoers were mostly free to make up their own minds. In his acclaimed novel The Tin Drum, German author Günter Grass refers to Jesus as "Athlete of Athletes, world's champion hanger on the cross," and describes seagulls attacking a carcass as "the Holy Ghost descending to feast the Pentecost." Instead of being sentenced to death, he was awarded the Nobel Prize.
Three decades ago, when I began questioning my Roman Catholic upbringing, my uncle, an Augustinian priest, said to me, "Who are you to question centuries of Church teaching?" My answer was, "A human being with a brain." Yet I later managed to graduate in the Honors Program at Villanova University, where my uncle had been a prominent official. The card catalog in the campus library still noted books that were on the old Index Prohibitorum, but the condemned books were nonetheless available on the library shelves. Christendom has its problems, but it has had a Reformation. Islam desperately needs something similar.
Dahir quotes Fortuyn as condemning "third-generation Moroccans" who "won't live by our values." The values to which Fortuyn referred were social tolerance and equality for gays and women. Dahir does not explain what is wrong with these values or with defending them. He also attacks Fortuyn for blaming crime on gangs of immigrant Muslim youths, while ignoring the fact that Fortuyn's crime statistics were accurate. Apparently we are expected to ignore reality to protect Muslim sensibilities.
Dahir attributes criticism of Muslims to "fear and ignorance and stereotyping." As my colleague Bruce Bawer writes, "Fear is right. Fear of having a wall dropped on you! Fear of gay-rights advances in the Netherlands and other countries in western Europe - and of liberal democracy generally - being watered down, or reversed, by a growing Muslim minority that, generation by generation, refuses to adapt to democratic ways." As to ignorance, Bawer asks, "Ignorance of what? The strong, vibrant democratic systems in place throughout the Islamic world?"
According to Dahir, "Muslims are the new communists. an easy scapegoat for all our political woes." Here Dahir joins the leftists who talk, against overwhelming evidence, as if the Communist threat to the West was entirely invented by Joe McCarthy. Does Dahir claim that the persecutions of gays in Muslim countries were fabricated? As to scapegoating, even after September 11, Muslims enjoy far more protections in the West than under Islam, which may be one reason so many come here.
Islam has a serious problem in its treatment of gays and women, and in its suppression of free expression and free worship. Portraying critics of this as villains is mere evasion. I can sympathize with the cautious approach of Faisal Alam, leader of the gay Muslim group Al-Fatiha, since he has received death threats as I have not, but that only illustrates the problem. And I do not recall any Christian fundamentalists flying fuel-laden aircraft into office buildings. I do not blame Dahir for this. I just want him to stop his distortions and stop blaming the West for defending its hard-won secular tradition of personal liberty.