Beware the militant secularists
Oh no, says Amrou Al-Kadhi at the Guardian, London Pride is not just corporate but also Militantly Secular.
Pride’s corporative makeover contributes to an image that I find politically troubling – that neoliberal ideology is the generator of LGBT rights. As a gay person of Muslim heritage, the inescapable secularism of Pride makes me anxious. When western capitalism is painted as a haven for gay rights, I experience a friction between the Muslim and queer parts of my identity. This is particularly sensitive in a context where, for instance, a large number of gay men in Paris voted for Marine Le Pen in 2017, persuaded by her rhetoric that Islam was a threat to civic liberties.
And last year’s Pride saw its fair share of Islamophobia, with groups holding placards reading “Fuck Islam”, with some specifically damning the East London local mosque.
Well, let’s be real: religion has not always been a fan or ally of LGB rights, and conservative religions still are not. In places where Islam is the government being gay can be fatal.
And while the treatment of LGBT people remains dire in many Muslim countries, this militant secularism mutes the fact that many queer Muslims also hope to march at Pride, and that a majority of Muslims condemn homophobia…
That’s not what the surveys say:
Of those questioned, 88% said Britain was a good place for Muslims to live in, and 78% said they would like to integrate into British life on most things apart from Islamic schooling and some laws.
However, when asked to what extent they agreed or disagreed that homosexuality should be legal in Britain, 18% said they agreed and 52% said they disagreed, compared with 5% among the public at large who disagreed. Almost half (47%) said they did not agree that it was acceptable for a gay person to become a teacher, compared with 14% of the general population.
Al-Kadhi continues:
With Pride’s corporate redesign comes some exclusionary pragmatics. Despite organisers stipulating that marchers can’t be drunk, there is a lot of alcohol at the parade, and this can be difficult for many Muslims who don’t drink, or for those who are fasting during the month.
Oh come on. It’s a huge public event, where people are going to do what they feel like doing. It’s a celebratory event, and for a lot of people that involves alcohol. Deal with it.
The enormous media presence also makes it more difficult for queer minorities who don’t have the privilege of being safely out to their families.
But the majority opposes homophobia, so what’s the problem? He hasn’t really ironed out the wrinkles, has he.
As a reaction against Pride’s increasing inaccessibility, queer people of colour and faith are creating alternative events. Make-up artist Umber Ghauri, who identifies as Muslim and queer, helped set up Queer Picnic, which offers an alternative space to Pride that is safer for people of colour and faith. Umber tells me how the secular nature of “mainstream Pride” fragments their sense of self, “forcing you to chop off your Muslim identity in order to celebrate your LGBT identity”. Queer Picnic, however, is an inclusive gathering without any media intrusion, offering predominantly sober spaces, giving intersectional queer identities the chance “to celebrate all of who we are”.
Inclusive? Is it? Is it inclusive of people who dislike religion? Of atheists? Of secular human rights activists?
You can’t always have everything. You can be devout or Out and Proud but not necessarily both. Liberal religions are fine with being out but – newsflash – not all religions are liberal.
Terry Sanderson commented on Facebook:
Here we go again, with religious people (or person in this case) whinging that they aren’t being given special privileges. This time its gay Muslims and Pride. This writer complains about Pride’s apparent “militant secularism” which he says excludes “people of faith”.
But surely secularism is there to ensure that everyone – people of all faiths and none – can take part on an inclusive basis. It tries to avoid the “I refuse to take part if they take part” mentality – and as we know, religions are very good at objecting to one another.
So now, apparently, we have a separate Pride event just for “people of faith”. This is so sad. I haven’t seen restrictions in the main parade on anyone with religious leanings. I have seen people marching under religious banners.
What this man seems to want is some kind of special privilege for religious marchers.
Dressed up as “inclusivity.”
Maryam comments on Terry’s post:
Another Guardian piece attacking Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain (CEMB) for our stance against Islam and equating it with discrimination against Muslims. We on the other hand support Muslim LGBT and feel very safe with their presence at Pride and everywhere else. We will always support Muslim LGBT and look forward to the day when LGBT from Muslim backgrounds can live free from fear and intimidation and violence. That day will also be a day when women are free from Islam’s impositions and ex-Muslims can be atheists without threats and violence. Our rights and lives are linked to each other.
That’s the real inclusivity.
“The enormous media presence” is fairly natural for a parade experience. It’s quite good to have events that aren’t parades, and of them, it’s quite good that plenty of them are quiet and fairly private. Go on, have one of those. Have many of those. Please though, don’t regard a parade as a rival – it’s an alternative sort of event, with very different expectations appropriately had of it.
And for those who aren’t out to their families and friends – while they can’t comfortably participate at a media-heavy event, it’s still an event that will help those family and friends see all sorts of LGBT folk being exactly that, in all our variety and normality. That’s going to make coming out a lot easier if and when someone does choose to do so. They’re marching for you, even if you can’t march with them.
Excellent points.
“Difficult” how? Because they will be tempted? Because in addition to not drinking they don’t want to be around other people drinking?
The whole thing is the dog’s breakfast but that jumped out at me.
Also, re the public aspect–I have heard of people wearing colorful masks to parades. Pride parades in particular. I mean, go ahead, enjoy your own more private event (but call it what it is–exclusive, not inclusive,) but if you really wanted to participate in The Big Parade there are ways.
Yeah, “I would like to go to a Pride parade, but I don’t like the idea of people doing things of which I do not approve, even if they have no effect on me” is an oddly contradictory message.
I wonder how much friction there would be between his gay and muslim components… if he were in Tehran? But these complaints are just pathetic.
“What if someone proclaims themselves to be gay, loudly and in public, but they are in a position where they can’t afford to be ‘out’?” Oh gee I don’t know, maybe attending a high visibility gay event isn’t a very good idea for that person? Also, don’t shout “I’m gay” at your parents, don’t wear gay pride slogans, don’t fuck someone of your own sex in front of them etc. etc.
But in particular… Imagine being such a prig that you went to a giant public celebration and then complained about the presence of alcohol. That’s like going to an Italian restaurant and then getting upset at all the pasta.
Or like going to Folk Life and complaining about all the folk music.
It’s a little sad when people lose sight of the fact that Pride is a celebration of the fact that Pride can happen, in the places where it can.
This is part of why I don’t think we, as atheists, should be allies with the religious left.
This boils down to the idea that because my club rules say I can’t do it – you, a non-member, shouldn’t be allowed to do it either. It reeks of privilege.
Pride Marches exist for gay people to very clearly demonstrate they exist and aren’t going to put up with being intimidated into silence.
In other words, queer majorities began marching precisely because they didn’t have the “privilege” of being out to their families, and marching was part of what won them that “privilege”. It wasn’t something that was handed to anyone on a silver platter, it was something people had to fight, and in some cases die for.
I cannot help but view his issue here with contempt, of course there is risk, that’s the fucking point. It is why people are marching. Pride is a protest FFS.
Well…’Pride’ events have had a tendency to devolve into Mardi Gra/St Paddy’s festivals of public drunkenness. With littering, fights, traffic accidents etc. proliferating. Plenty of non-Muslims have mentioned the issue.
But, ‘Islam [IS]a threat to civic liberties,’ nobody needs Le Pen to persuade them of the fact. And if the Guardian, and Salon etc. etc. categorically refuse to address the issue. Or reframe Islamists into Cold-War ‘progressives,’ we’re going to see the worst fringes of the far right gain a credibility that they would never have otherwise.
Correctly.
Religions are neither liberal nor conservative. Religious people are liberal or conservative. Just like non-religious people are liberal or conservative. But even that’s not nuanced enough. A religious person can be liberal on some issues and conservative on others.
Until only a few of decades ago, a relatively large proportion of “liberal” christians and liberal atheists in “western culrture” were incredibly homophobic. As I recall, in the ’80s, homophobia was part of the fabric of society. In the ’90s, things were starting to change and those same liberal christians and atheists had kind of decided that “it’s OK to be gay”, but it wasn’t until the ’00s that it sounded to me like most of the people saying that had really internalised and actually believed it.
People can change their minds. Even muslims. :-) Sure, the muslim leaders are probably more conservative, and more homophobic, than average, but acceptance of homosexuality by liberal christians generally didn’t start from the top of the christian churches either. It started from the bottom and filtered up, especially in sects like catholicism where the people at the top are very conservative.
I don’t see any reason to suspect that muslims won’t be able to make that change. Heck, the numbers are probably already better now amongst those groups than they were a decade ago. And while I’ll always be in favour of convincing people to leave the religion they’ve been indoctrinated into, if a person wants to stay in and change the minds of their fellow believers for the better from the inside, well, they probably can make a difference if they try hard enough for long enough, just like queer atheist and christian campaigners needed to do.