QuoteI find it difficult to believe that even those among us with a vibrant imagination can muster the creative energy to picture a reality in which anti-gay violence and bullying exist without the anti-gay religious messages that support them.
I disagree.
I suggest religion is simply being hijacked.
Since the beginning of civilisation, about 35000 years ago, leaders have sought to make their subordinates, especially the male lower classes, into warriors. Women have been pushed into the role of home makers and carers. This was deemed necessary so people could be summoned to sacrifice their lives and health for the protection and comfort of leaders.
When ever you look at social bullying, it is invariably an attempt by those who see themselves in a more dominant position in social hierarchy, imposing their will upon those they see as lesser.
The attacks upon non-white peoples were intended to put and keep people into lower positions within the social hierarchy. Class based upon race. This was the governing principal of the colonisation of Africa and the principal reason so many Indians were imported.
I have to say I am astonished, to say the least, at how easily, the number one bogey man of the west has shifted from Russia to the ME. Russia was shown to be a paper tiger, which it always was. But the fortune of Saddam, for example, is perhaps, the most significant example of this willingness to fear. Saddam never changed any of his policies. In the late 70s and early 80s, when he was being hailed as the good friend of the west, he was essentially the same individual who, 10 years later, was evil personified.
The response to 9/11, for example, was a Rambo-esk display of gung ho revenge. The million people murdered as a result were almost all decent, ordinary people with little or no means of defending themselves, let alone being any danger to anyone. Yet even now, reports and images of socially and culturally degenerate communities along side sinister images of people with obscured faces holding guns are being propagated. Continual, misguided reports of female repression are being used to justify continuing hostility.
Our situation is not that different. People, whose sexuality doesn't conform to a norm have been the target of attack, in many parts of the world since earliest times.
I further suggest that the vast majority of people are as appalled by these acts as those affected. I don't accept that most people are racist, nor have any particularly negative views relating to the sexuality of others. Most people just want to get on with their lives and raise their children is reasonable safety.
The problems occur and continue because those that incite the bullies.
After 9/11 there were a number of those directly affected who formed a group called, Not in My Name. It was difficult to attack these people since the justification for the murders was to avenge those affected. So this group was all but ignored, silenced by dramatic images such as crowds watching a football game in NY when an image of a Stealth Bomber appeared over head. It would have been a very brave (or foolish) person who would have stood up there and objected to what became mass murder.
The transgendered community is simply not strong enough, at this time to stand up against the rhetoric that these people employ. We are essentially subjugated to the gay community, for the time being at least. The gay community, while it is making welcome strides toward acceptance, remains, essentially, in a precarious situation.
The tentative acknowledgement of the likes of Blair are just crumbs from the table. The problem is not the lack of law. Assault and coercion are crimes. They don't need specific categories. They need the political will to implement them.
