A conspiracy of silence - how the left stays silent about Islamic homophobia and murder

While he was at university in Iraq, Muslim students discovered he was gay and then began a reign of terror. He was kicked, punched, bashed and threatened with worse - and this was before ISIS controlled the area in which he lived. He knew that if his father knew about his terrible secret it would mean a death sentence. Islamic families consider relatives who are, or might be, gay, as deserving of an "honour" killing to remove this perversion in the name of Allah. 

Taim reported in his BBC article, "ISIS are also professional when it comes to tracking down gay people. They hunt them down one by one. When they capture people, they go through his phone and his contacts and Facebook friends. They are trying to track down every gay man. And it's like dominoes. If one goes, the others will be taken down too."

Taim continued, "It's devastating to see the public reaction to the killings", adding "You should see the Facebook comments after they post videos of the killings: 'We hate ISIS but when they do things like this, we love them. God bless you ISIS' and 'I am against ISIS but I am totally with ISIS when they kill gays' and 'Amazing news. This is the least that gays deserve' and 'The most horrible crime on earth is homosexuality. Good job ISIS' ".  

The Washington Post (USA) has published an article headed "The Islamic State's shocking war on gays" and it reported how ISIS has posted "a non-stop catalogue of atrocities against gay people living under their watch" and "The group released numerous videos appearing to show the execution of supposed homosexuals". In one month alone, the newspaper reported, there had been more than two dozen executions of supposed gay men and women.

In January 2015, ISIS killed nine men and a 15 year old boy suspected of being gay in a Syrian town they controlled and also released images showing their fighters pushing accused homosexuals off a building in the Iraqi city of Mosul. When one alleged gay man in the Syrian town of Palmyra was about to be shoved off the roof of a hotel after ISIS officials ruled that he must die, he begged to be shot in the head instead. His plea was ignored and he fell to his death.

A young Syrian man who fled and found sanctuary in the USA was quoted as saying, "At the executions, hundreds of townspeople, including children, cheer jubilantly as (if) at a wedding." He added Arab gays were also frightened of refugee camps as they were bullied, assaulted and raped there as well because it was not just ISIS and other fundamentalist groups that were brutally homophobic, it was the whole Islamic society.

Yet despite this open and even proud boasting about anti-gay crackdowns in Muslim societies, western LGBT activists have remained conspicuously silent. Their gay brothers and sisters in the Islamic world are wondering why - after all, no fewer than 40 out of 57 Muslim-majority countries or territories have laws that criminalise homosexuality, prescribing punishments ranging from fines to public whippings, very long jail sentences or death.

During the last northern hemisphere summer LGBT communities in Europe and North America celebrated Rainbow Pride but not one single march protested the inhumane treatment of gays under Muslim regimes.

Chicago's Dyke's March ejected marchers who carried rainbow flags with the Jewish Star of David because this was labelled "offensive" and this was supposed to be an "inclusive" event. Canada's left-liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau joined Toronto's Pride Parade and wished "Happy Pride to Allah" - a sentiment which would have him killed by ISIS and other fundamentalist Muslims as a gross and unforgivable insult - while in the USA marches did not make one single mention of the mass murder of 49 gays in an Orlando Florida nightclub by a self-confessed ISIS jihadist whose monstrous crime has been explained away as the act of somebody mentally deranged with a deliberate avoidance of his documented ISIS inspiration. US gay pride marches concentrated on attacking Trump, loudly proclaiming that "Black Lives Matter" and condemning Christian churches for any sentiment in favour of traditional marriage which is seen as anti-gay prejudice.

In the New York Pride march, Trump administration officials were called "queer bashers" but not a single thought was given to gays living in fear in Muslim communities.

When gay fashion icons Domenico Dolce and Stafano Gabbana said that they opposed gay marriage, they faced a storm of criticism and calls for a ban on their brand. But there has never ever been any call from LGBT organisations across Europe and North America - and Australia for that matter - for campaigns to boycott goods from Islamic countries despite the fact that gays there are attacked, abused and even murdered. Some gay activists in Australia have enthusiastically joined in the boycott of Israeli goods despite Israel being the only democracy in the Middle East and the only country supportive of gay people.

There were no protests against Iran which recently arrested 30 gays in a night raid and submitted them to a "sodomy test", none against the murder of Bangladeshi gay bloggers and none against the torture and imprisonment of gays in Turkey.

For the official LGBT establishment, sympathy and support for gays stops at the borders of Muslim countries lest they be accused of - shock, horror - the vile crime of Islamophobia.

Very largely, the left-liberal mainstream media has been complicit in this blackout of Muslim assaults against gay people in the Middle East and elsewhere. Like the western LGBT establishment, most of the media shamelessly ignores this persecution because they fear being described as Islamophobic.