More comments from the Goldsmiths LGBTQ+ post declaring solidarity with Goldsmiths Isoc and condemnation of Goldsmiths ASH.

One.

I understand your wish to show solidarity, but I don’t understand your choice to necessarily take sides in this matter, nor do I understand the side you’ve chosen.

Try investigating what Maryam mentions several times as one of the central issues – conflating Islam, Islamism and Muslims – making it impossible to criticize an ideology without being called a bigot by people who can’t tell apples from oranges.

There are real people suffering very real pain right now. They are partially suffering because we in the west fail to identify and point out the actual problems, and hide behind political correctness out of fear of being labelled an “Islamophobe”.

I’m quite disappointed in your position, and I hope you’ll reconsider your allegations towards not just Maryam, but the enormous group of humanist supporting her views and supporting the millions of Muslims who are subject to discrimination and violence caused by a twisted interpretation of Islam and a lack of criticism of the same.

Two. (Kate won’t mind her name being included.)

Kate Smurthwaite I find this beyond unbelievable. Goldsmiths ISOC is the same organisation that recently hosted Hamza Tsorzis. A an who has openly compared homosexuality to bestiality and has never retracted or apologised for such a statement. How can you feel it acceptable that he be heard while Maryam Namazie is shouted down, has her equipment compromised and every effort is made to intimidate her. Surely you can see the hypocrisy in this? Would it not be possible to do your actual job of standing up for LGBT rights rather than getting involved in supporting a group who are not representing the majority of Muslims and who are demanding the right to have their extreme views shielded from challenge or debate?

Three.

Goldsmiths LGBTQ+ Society just a couple points, these people walked into her speech then proceeded to interrupt her and then became aggressive and tampered with her property. One tells her to shut the f up?! Would your stance be a different story if it were say Peter lababra or WBC behaving this way. I support women’s rights and I’m shamed by your comments, as a gay man I do not agree with you, I condemn those disrespectful and disruptive actions of those men, you are wrong.

Four.

I am on the LGBT committee of another London university and an ex-Muslim. I am utterly disgusted by your continued support of the Isoc society after watching the video. You owe Maryam Namazie an apology, who has bravely supported international gay rights for many years. You are traitors – not for being Islamist apologists – but for so stubbornly sticking with your misinformed and misguided statements. Maryam is a champion for voicing the LGBT rights of people living in countries governed by sharia. Gobsmacked by your statements.

Five. (Ali also won’t mind having his name on it.)

The video is out in public now, and despite the Goldsmiths Students’ Union trying their best to shut it down, it is going viral. Everyone is learning that the Goldsmiths LGBTQ+ Society may quite possibly be the most self-hating and misogynistic LGBTQ community in the world. But then again, there are Latinos supporting Donald Trump.

Six.

While your experience with ISOC may have been just so fluffy and positive, you do realize you have chosen to side with theocratic authoritarianism over free speech, don’t you? Blasphemy is not a crime, especially not if you claim the secular ideals that protect free speech, free thought, and free expression. While people of course have the right to whatever religion they choose, or no religion at all, they don’t have the right to never have their ideas and beliefs questioned, criticized, or even ridiculed. No one has the special right to not have their feelings hurt, especially if it’s over ideas and ideologies, which have no rights at all.

University is for being exposed to different ideas, including those you may disagree with, indeed including those you may find offensive. It’s not for inoculating yourself from anything that might make your taint clench up.

You have the right to your position, but your position is wrong. In every state where the theocratic ideals of Islam are in full effect, and there is no separation of church and state, the plight of LGBT people trapped under these regimes is absolutely deplorable. And for you to side with theocratic integrity over the right to call that shit out is a betrayal, not just of the liberal secular ideal, but of your entire movement.

For shame if you can feel it.

Seven.

Hmm. Let’s see. The “brothers” sat in front of a camera and then behaved so as to ensure that they were the center of attention. But that’s not consent? If I walk behind a reporter during a newscast, do I get to complain afterward that my face appeared on television? Would you say that’s not consent either?

I think it’s obvious that your society is a confused bunch with neither liberal principles nor a backbone upon which to stand when their defense is required. Hence, your masochistic willingness to act in alliance with Islamofascists who would gladly shout you down in any situation in which you were seeking to acquire the rights that ex-Muslims and Muslim reformers are fighting for due to all too many societies and cultures that lack them – it must be nice being so privileged that you don’t have to take the actual oppression of gays, freethinkers, women, etc. in Islamic societies, or threats to them at home seriously, and instead feel that you have the moral high ground in befriending the bullies of the minority within the minority.

I saw only one that semi-supported them.