Gay rights under Islam – some consistency please

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Peter Baum from UK

​The recent Sharia legislation pertaining to LGBT in the State of Brunei has attracted global media attention as high profile individuals have expressed their outrage. Superstars including George Clooney and Elton John have been prominent in their vociferous condemnation and calling for boycotts of hotels owned by the Sultan of Brunei through the country’s investment vehicle.

Irrespective of one’s religious or moral views on the subject the hypocrisy of those protesting is astonishing and should be exposed in order to assist others affected by and subjected to similar  abuse.

No geographical area attracts more, mainstream media attention than Israel  and  Palestine and the vast majority of media output is exceptionally hostile towards the world’s only Jewish state. The BBC and CNN as examples of global news brands , have perpetrated a biased and defamatory agenda which has contributed to and facilitated the huge upsurge in antisemitism in recent years. Negative output relating to  Israel’s enemies is muted,  reconstructed or simply unreported and truthful historical and legal l narrative has morphed into fiction .

Given the atrocities and abuses committed on Palestinian gays by the fundamentalist Islamists leading Hamas, why has there been no similar outrage or exposure of the LGBT community in the Palestinian controlled Gaza Strip especially given the saturation media coverage dedicated to this landmass. Why are gays in Brunei worthy of such media attention compared to Palestinian gays ? Readers of my articles may remember me asking something similar regarding the New Zealand massacre of Muslims which also commanded global media coverage but the massacre of Christians in Nigeria both prior and after the NZ atrocities were barely covered. Global media brands are not only professionally incompetent buy truthfully biased depending on the ideology of the news editors and the puppets they employ.

Donald Trump coined the phrase fake news which is a coverall for not only biased news but also news that should be reported but is omitted such as the genocides in CAR and DCR which over a thirty year period claimed the lives of nearly fourteen million indigenous black Africans. Clearly Black Lives  DID NOT MATTER  to the BBC. Similarly the human rights of gays in Brunei are to the media of such importance that the liberal left, the Hollywood Luvvies, the BBC and CNN, you know to whom  I refer as all  the ‘ usual suspects  ‘ are falling over themselves to promote this story . And yet these same activists and media outlets continuously ignore the plight of  gays in the Palestinian territories  despite the saturation media coverage given to the Israeli Palestinian issue. And the answer is so plain to see why this nauseating hypocrisy manages to define the propaganda that spews out like a volcanic eruption from the overheated, professionally incompetents that are responsible for the global media brands. Bias , bigotry, left wing ideology, ignorance, incompetence, mocking the public, bending to fashion and a barrier to criticize those who have gained years of media attention and unwarranted, unfair ,  ideological support

Thankfully via news output sites such as this fine journal Weekly Blitz there are standards of reporting that will expose the bias and ignorance of more powerful news channels and through these sources of information assisted by social media we will defy the odds and get our stories told to help those who the mainstream media choose to omit.

Incredibly the rights of the LGBT Community in Israel despite the demands of Orthodox Jewry are comparable with any liberal democracy quite opposite to Arab and non Arab Muslim dominated countries where the death penalty is still commonplace for non heterosexuals. And yet the media has been silent; it has failed to live up to its liberal ideals and severely let down those LGBT Muslims .

It goes without saying that had Israel adopted similar attitudes towards its LGBT Community as Hamas and the Palestinians have continuously adopted towards Palestinian gays there would be outrage, protests, boycotts from academics, TV and movie personalities and every left wing organisation globally. But  such liberal standards are different  when the rights of Palestinian gays are exposed. Why does this hypocrisy and why do these double standards exist ? The answer is simply about the ideology and mind sets of those protesting which has absolutely nothing to do with the needs of the victims but everything to do with the bigotry of those protesting and their view of the perpetrators .

It is so easy to pick on Brunei by the media and Hollywood elite . Boycott the luxury hotels they cry, owned by the Sultan of Brunei’s Investment Fund. Less than 0.001 per cent of the population can afford one night in one of those luxury hotels.  The Sultan is an easy mark for protest. Why not protest against the treatment of Uighur gays by the Chines – probably because the vast majority of those currently protesting against the Sultan are huge users and buyers of Chinese products so their protestations would not suit at all.

And Palestinian gays……where are the screams of protests , the outrage, the condemnation. There is only a deafening silence. And why ? Again the answer is so simple and yet so disgraceful that it shames not only the global media but also those who are supposedly so enraged about the action of the Kingdom of Brunei. Thw orld has become used to hearing about the plight of the dispossessed Palestinians and the trials and tribulations they have suffered and endured over years of Zionist occupation and oppression. The paradox is that those Arab Muslims living within Israel are free and can live like any decent human should be permitted to live. Under the totalitarian rule of Hamas they are not free. They suffer and are treated like farm animals. And gays are maltreated…and the world is silent as it would not do for the media to expose the true plight of the Palestinians.

Peter Baum is the Special Contributor of Blitz

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