‘A sense of betrayal’: liberal dismay as Muslim-led US city bans Pride flags | Hacker News Reader

‘A sense of betrayal’: liberal dismay as Muslim-led US city bans Pride flags

theguardian.com

7 pointsandsoitis15 comments

Wouldn't "betrayal" require some kind of deception? This seems perfectly in line with general, openly professed Muslim attitudes to LGBT. Perhaps this specific group boasted about being pro-LGBT before, and changed tune when in power, but I highly doubt it, so I'm not going to accuse them of dishonesty.

When (conservative) religious types talk about their true nature, believe them. When X is alien or hostile to their belief system, anybody's belief system really, it's going to be opposed.

Most religions don’t allow for same sex relationships or transgender people.

Having religious people steering a community is dumb in general, no matter whether they are christian-religious or muslim-religious.

Hopefully this experience will open somebody’s eye.

Isn’t that the “core” principle of being liberal? Free to believe whatever you’re believing in without forcing or shaming others from not following your ideology?. I find it fair to ban the flags as long as other religions can’t announce theirs too like curches bell or mosques Azan or whatever. Why would you teach my kids about X ideology in school while others aren’t allowed to do the same? The meaning of multiculturalism and diversity is not shoving someone ideology into others’, and certainly not getting upset when people don’t like your ideology.

> without forcing or shaming others from not following your ideology

that's not what's happening here. What's happening here is that the government is saying to people that they're not allowed to be express themselves.

And for the record, being is not an "ideology"

There's a hell of a lot of overlap between 'being' and 'ideology'. How would you characterise being a Muslim? I'm not religious, but I wouldn't say it's just an ideology. Further gay pride isnt just about happening to like someone of the same sex.

Further further. What's the practical difference? Am I supposed to just turn my liberalness off? Why is that just an ideology rather than being?

>that's not what's happening here. Is it? For the same context, I saw a couple days ago an elementary teacher publicly shaming and attacking a kid just because he doesn’t want to participate in that, it isn’t about expressing anymore, in a normal “liberal” situation, whoever wants to express has the freedom and who doesn’t want to participate have the freedom not to do without being attacked by any means.

>What's happening here is that the government is saying to people that they're not allowed to be express themselves.

The ban only extends to flags on city property.

This is confusing, why is there a liberal dismay? Islam has always been contradictory to human rights, but weirdly supported by liberals. What did they think would happen? It's like the bush administration, thinking they could change the hearts and minds, and create democracy in Iraq.

Liberal Muslims exist.

Unsolved: intolerance and hate arising from inclusiveness

As a gay male who has fallen down the oppression hierarchy over the last decades, I would say the solution is "ignored" rather than "unsolved." Inclusiveness should be conditioned on some kind of social contract that requires a level of tolerance and a bit of sacrifice. This was well understood as sort of axiom in the past, but now even stating the fact that "group X is committed to not approving of group Y," even as a member of Group Y, is itself seen as intolerant.

So it's an unsolvable problem when you demand everyone to have their maximalist demands, which if you deny you are committing "violence" or "erasure."

Can you explain? Do you mean people learn to hate others that get included?

Other way around. When you include people who hate, you get included in their hate.

The Paradox of Tolerance once again rears its head, and heaves a single disappointed sigh.

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