Media coverup of Muslim attitude to homosexuals

Post lifted from Bruce Bawer's blog -- dated October 29, 2006

I have before me two news items dated October 24th. One of them is from the Gay Community News, which reports that "The leading imam in Manchester...thinks the execution of sexually active gay men is justified."  The imam made his comments in a discussion with a Manchester psychotherapist, John Casson, who wanted the imam to clarify the Islamic position on the execution of gays in Iran.  Both Jihad Watch and Little Green Footballs linked to this story at GCN.  I've looked in vain for it in the major British newspapers.

The other item is a story from LifeSiteNews.com reporting that the BBC "has admitted to a marked bias against Christianity and a strong inclination to pro-Muslim reporting among the network's executives and key anchors."  It has also admitted that "the corporation is dominated by homosexuals."  These admissions came at a secret "impartiality summit" that the Daily Mail reported on last Sunday.  The Telegraph ran an opinion column about this summit, but otherwise I can't find any reference to it on the websites of other major UK papers.

So the question is this: did the gay-dominated but Muslim-friendly BBC report on the Manchester imam's comments?  I searched the BBC site and found a brief story dated Thursday, October 26 -- meaning that apparently the BBC took two days to get around to reporting this.  And look how they spun it.  The story is framed not as a report of a Muslim leader's affirmation of the legitimacy under Islam of executions of gay people, but as a report of an effort to smear Muslims. 

The headline: "Imam accused of 'gay death' slur."  The lead: "A gay rights campaigner has accused an Imam of saying the execution of gay Muslims to stop the spread of disease is 'for the common good of man.'"  The brief story that follows seems designed to raise doubts about the accuracy of Casson's account of his conversation with the imam.  And the piece concludes with comments from Massoud Shadjareh of the Islamic Human Rights Commission, who essentially dismisses the issue of Muslim executions of gay people -- "He said homosexuality was 'not compatible' with Islam, just as it was not compatible with other orthodox religions, such as Catholicism" -- and who complains that giving attention to this issue "is part of demonising Muslims."

That's right -- to draw attention to the fact that orthodox Muslim belief approves of the execution of homosexuals is to demonize Muslims. The BBC story ends there.  There's no indication of any effort to pin Shadjareh down on Muslim attitudes toward gays, no mention of the many previous occasions on which Muslim religious leaders have said essentially the same thing the Manchester imam did, no quote from a gay-rights activist, and (of course) no quote from a straight-talking Islam expert like Robert Spencer who might have explained that sharia law does indeed prescribe capital punishment for homosexuals

If the BBC is in fact dominated by gays, I as a gay man am ashamed of and disgusted by every last one of them.  What can they possibly think they're accomplishing by whitewashing Islam in this fashion?  It's as if a Jewish media organization in the 1930s kept itself busy propagandizing for the Nazis and covering up plans for the Holocaust.

(For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Page. Email me (John Ray) here.)

No comments:

Post a Comment

All comments containing Chinese characters will not be published as I do not understand them