The Outing of a Community

The Outing of a Community

Recently the Guardian ran a story on the suicide of a gay man.

Not an unusual occurrence given the statistics.

But of course the Guardian's take on it was where to lay the blame for which they claimed lay with the conservative attitudes of his community, family and parents. (1)

But the statistics paint a different story.

Off course the headline grabber is that LGBT young people are six times more likely to attempt suicide and six times more likely to succeed than their counterparts. (2)

Once again the propagandists would have that our schools do not go far enough in regards to eradicating homophobia in the classroom.
That is until you realise that a commensurate difference also exists within liberal Western society at large. (2)

Recent statistics show that liberal Western values have penetrated to our northernmost and remotest enclaves; throughout all urban, suburban, rural and industrial British communities. Interestingly when asked whether or not they would support a son or daughter of theirs in coming out, London because of its high immigrant and possible Muslim population fared the worst, in their books.

So it would seem that homophobic bullying is really at an all time National low, and people are generally supportive of such lifestyle choices and yet the significantly higher suicide rates, by a factor of six, of gays persist. (2)

After all Muslims really do only make up 4.8% of the population by the last census.

And I would even go so far as predicting that those rate differentials will not smooth down, no matter how much lobbying is done by the gay lobby to change the face of Britain.

This tells and interesting, but not politically correct, story that gay people are essentially unhappy.

Although countless time and money has been spent investigating the human genome to find the "gay" gene it has not been forthcoming.
And yet the illusion, in popular culture, that you can be born gay persists despite the science.

Some time last year, the up and coming socialist, Owen Jones wrote a piece essentially defending Muslims by saying that having Muslim friends he could easily see how much of their belief coloured everything that they do. I did not understand the disquiet that I felt on reading that piece until in fact I deliberated on what I say here.

What Owen was essentially saying was that you are born a Muslim, and can only very slightly affect your perceptions and views away from the dominant culture within Islam.
He was deliberately, and ever so quietly, equating being a Muslim with being a homosexual, off course not in substance.

After all modern socialism often finds it's crusading issues with the sidelined and undervalued, and during this age with the LGBT community.

But actually from a Muslim perspective neither is true. Muslims may well be born to Muslim parents, but still have to continually affirm their identity and most especially when the dominant culture is so very much opposed to them. Muslims choose to be muslims, and choose to honour the Messenger of God as the best of creation.

In a like manner homosexuals make a lifestyle choice. They are not born as such, but they use the ploy well.
In a like manner they would rather the air of respectability through marriage, even though its final moments could not mirror the unravelling of its counterpart's union. For "who would get the children?" would be a mystery best left to those future unfortunate judges.

Could a homosexual really go to court to claim divorce proceedings other than as a means of exerting their normality? Could it really mean anything once you remove the political dimension from it?

Dominant Western culture does tend to confuse love with lust. That if you have a lustful relationship then you are well loved.

And conversely also that if you love someone then it should be translated into a lustful relationship.
Monogamous relations there are paper thin.

Within Islam granted you are allowed up to four wives, but they are to be equally looked after. And lust can only exist within the limits set by God, that a man can only enter the tilth of his wife for pleasure. And the best of men is the one who is best to his wife, both loving and kind.

Whereas a man can, and is encouraged, to express his love for his fellow brothers in the religion.
For their love of one another is a sacred bond that is best and most easily expressed by the prophetic index finger touching of a forefinger; side by side and alongside.

A brotherhood of closeness.
A mutual love of friendship that will, by GOD's abundant grace, extend beyond eternity.

And not a frivolous sexual empty shell.

Shafees.
Telling it like it is.

(1)
(http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/mar/21/my-boyfriend-killed-himself-because-his-family-couldnt-accept-that-he-was-gay

(2) https://gactupdate.wordpress.com/notes/suicide/
Stonewall 2013 data: 3% of gay men compared to 0.4% of men in general for attempts to take their own lives.
For young people 16-24 years the figures are 6% as compared to 1% in general.


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Location:Stonewalled

Gaol of Conscience

What LOSS Modernity?

Guy Debord wrote: 'In societies where modern conditions of production prevail, all of life presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has moved away into a representation.'

Jack asked with that preface : "Have we become alienated from ourselves?"

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One would naturally assume that with the division of labour caused by modernity (specialisation), that with the increased efficiencies and associated cost savings, that people would have more free time.

But in modern urban society even with increased leisure time, we still find that we live an essentially primitive hand to mouth existence.
And this I talk from first hand experience.

That we fill, to the overflowing brim, our leisure time with things to do, achievements to pursue.

But what pushes us to this grind stone if it is not food?

Is it expectation?
Is it the sense that under achievement is failure?

That we must be seen to be successful?
"The accumulation of spectacle."

But there is another cause of a loss of humanity, no less sinister.

For when we specialise, specialise and further specialise does the human touch lack?

Necessarily not.
For in the medical fields, as in any other I am sure, it is the human touch that can set one apart from another. That sets one Doctor to be better than another Doctor.
That sets one Pharmacist over another. :)

Or is it that we miss the margin for error?

Where before an error could result in localised incidents now an error can have wholesale implication.
So we push our children into further education and away from experience in the hope to insulate them from error.

How we both laugh and identify with the apprentices when they, in hindsight, err. More so because we have no margin to err.

Our humanity is not eroded by specialisation itself, but when we cannot forgive and cannot overlook an error when it occurs. When we are not allowed that margin to do so.

And most perniciously when the greatest power in the land holds us to account for our personal beliefs.

For when the LAW encroaches on our personal lives then that is when we must worry.

When we cannot plead conscience.
When we refuse to house a gay couple within our own home, that we have given over to public convenience, because we believe it to be wrong.

When the greatest law in the land dictates which translation of the Qur'an we must read.

When the government dictates to us for what to believe, and refuses for us to form our own opinion.

That is when, worry we must.

And it encroaches now.
In this age.
At this time.

Then fight we must, with brain and brawn, against the gaoler of conscience. Our law.

That must be unmade through peaceful dissidence. Rightful argument.




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Location:Parliament