| You
knew this was coming, didn’t you?
You knew somehow, some way, somebody was going to blame gays for the tsunami.
This time it’s a Muslim cleric who has stepped up to the plate and
driven the ball right into the cheap seats. So you can lose that edge of
expectation residing in your head and stomach. We’ve been vilified
by a holy person and all is right with the world.
Sheik Fawzan Al-Fawzan, an Islamic cleric and university professor, said
on Saudi television shortly after the natural disaster that the miseries
experienced in South Asia and East Africa “are Allah’s punishments
of the people of these countries, even if they are Muslims.” Even
if they were sin-free, they died because Allah has a track record of allowing
an area where badness is happening to be obliterated.
According to the website of the Middle East Media Research Institute, which
carries a translation of the interview, he said, “It happened at
Christmas, when fornicators and corrupt people from all over the world
come (to Asian resorts) to commit fornication and sexual perversion.”
Now there’s a Christmas tradition to which my family never introduced
me. I’m well-versed in tinsel and baking and presents, but fornication
was left right out.
Anyone reading this transcript could choose to believe that Al-Fawzan wasn’t
including gay acts in the phrase “sexual perversion.” But said
anyone soon has to wave goodbye to that happy place. The cleric concluded
that it’s time to “atone for our sins and for the acts of the
stupid people among us … We must fight fornication, homosexuality,
usury.”
Thus the cleric specifically listed us as baddies, people responsible for
making Allah a distinctly displeased deity, along with those guilty of
usury, which is loaning money at an exorbitant rate of interest. I’d
rather be gay.
How familiar this sounds. I do believe this fellow may be Jerry Falwell’s
soulmate. But neither would marry outside his faith.
Following 9/11, Falwell offered his take on the horror. I’m sure
you remember the sentiment. The words were, “I really believe the
pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians
who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU,
People for the American Way — all of them who have tried to secularize
America — I point the finger in their face and say: You helped this
happen.”
Different disaster, same scapegoating. Different cleric, same cluck.
Pat Robertson took a unique approach. In 1998 he announced the city of
Orlando was asking for catastrophic consequences by flying rainbow flags
from municipal light poles. Back then Robertson was naive. Now he knows
not to predict a catastrophe — that only makes a reverend look like
an oaf when nothing happens. No, the smart thing is to wait until a disaster
strikes, then blame gays.
What should we do about this situation? I see a couple of possible approaches.
One is to admit it, come clean, confess that everything is indeed our fault.
A famine in Africa? Us. A flood in Tennessee? We did it. Laura Bush stubs
her toe on uneven pavement? Yup, that’s us too.
This might work retroactively. The Lindbergh kidnapping? Uh huh. The Hindenburg
disaster? But of course.
Taking the blame for everything that goes wrong might simply be too grand
a vision, so here’s a more focused idea. To date we have brought
the wrath of Allah and God down upon the planet. I suggest we set about
pissing off every divine being. Alphabetically. We’ve covered Allah,
so next is Brahma, followed by Buddha. If we’re going to do this,
we may as well be orderly about it. |
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