Teargas Fired Into Anti-Gay Crowd (Scary people)

[WillParkinson]

(Dakar) Police in the Senegal capital of Dakar fired teargas into a crowd denouncing homosexuality following the release of a group of men charged with gross indecency after pictures of them allegedly at a gay wedding appeared in a local magazine.
The demonstration was organized by an Islamic group. Several hundred people gathered outside Dakar's main mosque despite the refusal by police to issue a permit for the protest.

Garbage bins were set on fire as organizers in front of the Grande Mosquee de Dakar demanded that all homosexuals in the country be rounded up and jailed.

When police ordered the protestors to disband some in the crowd began throwing stones. At that point police fired teargas into the crowd.

"We want homosexuals to be wiped out in this country," said organizer Cheikh Tidiane Ndiaye. "We will continue to fight for Senegal to become a Muslim nation."

http://www.365gay.com/Newscon08/02/021808sen.htm

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. Gay bashing is not Islam

I have many Sufi brothers and sisters who are gay/ lesbians. This is another manifestation of groups using religion as an excuse to bolster their own prejudices.

[MessiahRp]

2. Not unlike the gross misrepresentation of Christianity here

This sort of proves why religions as a whole are bad. People twist them around for malicious purposes and use them to politically drive wedges between people so they can take control of a certain constituency.

Religion is about control, nothing else.

Rp

[Meeker Morgan]

3. Misrepresentation my ass!

Just because some "historically Christian" people are becoming more humanist in modern times, does not mean that the ancestral bigotry is a misrepresentation.

The same goes for the Sufi sect of the normally bigoted Muslim faith.

Intolerance is the norm. Anything else is an anomaly.

And historical revisionism is a form of dishonesty, even in a good cause.

Better to dispense with being a creeping Jesus, altogether.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

4. the way many religions are run now,

I would agree that they are about control. However, some faiths rely upon the individual to forge his own path towards Source. These groups tend to be very small, and you don't hear much about them.

[UncleSepp]

5. Confirmation bias.

People also use religions for positive purposes, and people also use political philosophies to drive wedges between people. I think you are experiencing confirmation bias.

You saying religion is about control and nothing else doesn't make it so.

[MessiahRp]

6. Explain to me if the good of religion outweighs the bad.

You'd be pretty hardpressed to find too many wars where religious ideology weren't somehow connected. You'd also be pretty hardpressed to find places where religious zealots hadn't used the pulpit to convince (brainwash?) their supporters to support a political cause or candidate.

Rp

[UncleSepp]

7. If it isn't religion, it's something else

Anything that people feel strongly about can be used to manipulate them. The brainwashing and manipulation is the problem, not the particular hook.

[AlienGirl]

8. If nothing else works, it would be bellybottons, "innies" vs. "outies"

[UncleSepp]

9. Wide nostrils vs. narrow nostrils?

It worked in Somalia.

[TechBear_Seattle]

10. "Now the Star-bellied Sneetches had bellies with stars."

Now the Star-bellied Sneetches had bellies with stars.
The Plain-bellied Sneetches had none upon thars.
The stars weren't so big; they were really quite small.
You would think such a thing wouldn't matter at all.
But because they had stars, all the Star-bellied Sneetches
would brag, "We're the best kind of Sneetch on the beaches."

With their snoots in the air, they would sniff and they'd snort, "
We'll have nothing to do with the plain-bellied sort."
And whenever they met some, when they were out walking,
they'd hike right on past them without even talking.

When the Star-bellied children went out to play ball,
could the Plain-bellies join in their game? Not at all!
You could only play ball if your bellies had stars,
and the Plain-bellied children had none upon thars.

When the Star-bellied Sneetches had frankfurter roasts,
or picnics or parties or marshmallow toasts,
they never invited the Plain-bellied Sneetches.
Left them out cold in the dark of the beaches.
Kept them away; never let them come near,
and that's how they treated them year after year.

Dr. Seuss, The Sneeches

I have my own issues with religion but I have to agree: if it were not religion, it would be some other excuse for bigotry and intolerance.