If you notice in this thread, people weren't attacking Muslims as a group. We were attacking the stance taken by Muslims like Scifes and
Yosef. There is a difference. Because Scifes is a Muslim does not mean that he should be given free reign to spread his hate on this forum, nor should we remain silent on his hate out of fear of Islamaphobia.
Bells and Scifes,
Bells, I wouldn't ask you to not "attack" a homophobe because the homophobe happens to be Muslim. But I think the attack should be against homophobia and not against Islam. I agree that Islam should be condemned for spreading homophobia which is cruel just as spreading Islamophobia is cruel. I am openly bigoted against cruel even though I am part cruel.
When somebody is going to attack a group that is under attack the way Muslims and Homosexuals are under attack in the West and in other places the attacker should be very accurate and should no know why they are attacking and should never attack unconsciously or because it is fashionable to attack that group.
Scifes advocates cruelty to homosexuals. Rejection and condemnation alone are cruelty. To me cruelty is only acceptable when it is punishment. And Punishment is only acceptable when it prevents cruelty. Even when punishment does prevent cruelty the punishment should not be more cruel than the cruelty prevented.
I can not find a rational reason to punish homosexuality that meets my standards.
I can find reasons want to consider wanting to punish Islam because Islam does promote some cruelty; but punishment imposed by unvirtuous outsiders with who have unvirtuous motives for wanting to be cruel while pretending to punish won't work to correct the behavior but rather would undermine the internal struggle of those within the Muslim world that want to oppose cruelty done for the sake of tradition or orthodoxy. Everything that the west criticizes the Muslim world for is yet to be fully eradicated in the West.
Criticize the force the creates homophobia in all cultures. If you chose to single out Islam stay alert and remember that you might be mistaken for one of those people who says nasty things about Islam because because everybody is doing it and it satisfies like scratching a psychological itch. This itch actually has nothing to do with Islam and more to do with "Us" versus "Them tribal instincts." Many people want to make Islam into the West's enemy scapegoat the way the Germans made Jews into their scapegoats and the way some types of people want to make homosexuals there scapegoat.
Logically both you and Scifes are wrong about the homosexual to beastiality comparison. I presume Scifes thought since surely you would reject beastiality then you would see that homosexuality which is also a minority variant of human sexuality that is not as normal as heterosexual sex and serves no procreative purpose should also be rejected if you are going to reject beastiality. I don't think Scifes meant to be offensive. I think he was trying to be logical and I think to some degree he succeeded at being logical. I presume for you beastiality is disgusting and homosexuality is not disgusting and therefore the analogy offended you.
I think the old religions were trying to make sense out of this troublesome force that is sexuality and were trying to impose order on sexuality when the decided that sex is just for making children and is only appropriate in marriage and any other type of sex should be banned and shunned and thought of as disgusting.
Logically if we are lifting the disgust based "it's not normal and it does not make children within a marriage" taboos against variant sex then we should also drop our disgust against bestiality.
What we are left with after the moral taboos and disgust taboos are shown to be illogical and cruel is public health issues and animal cruelty issues which should be thought out logically not emotionally or religious superstitionally. Of course calling religions superstitions is cruel but this is Sciforums AKA a protected reserve for another persecuted minority "the atheist" and religions create so much cruelty so screw them. But don't single out Islam.
My earlier public health idea that bestiality was relatively safe sex is true for the individual but not true for the species. Beastiality could be an entry point diseases crossing species as could keeping farm animals or eating meat but beastiality only pleases a tiny minority.
Disgust is probably both learned and instinctual. When a young woman is creeped out by the sexual interest in her from an old man I think both her reaction to be disgusted by the unwelcome interest and the old man's interest are both probably more instinctual than learned. When I was a young man gay men hit on me a few times. Because I did not feel vulnerable or confused I did not need to react dramatically. But instinctively male homosexual sex has a yuck factor for me. I don't think it is a learned yuck factor. But do we want a world where the laws for all obey the instincts of the majority?
There are so many Homosexuals and bisexuals that I believe they must serve an evolutionary purpose and I suspect that internal relations within the bands of early humans must have been improved by having a certain percentage of the population being homosexual.
