Pride was a huge success this weekend, except today in Turkey, that is. Where Britons warmly embraced the celebrations, the streets of Istanbul were full of riot police firing water cannons and rubber bullets at the marchers.
Who’d have guessed that this sort of attitude would emanate from a muslim country, especially one which, almost unheard of in islamic states, homosexuality is not against the law? The country is hugely homophobic, as you might expect, so much of it was probably celebrating the police action.
Well, it’s not good timing, either, is it, what with Ramadan in full swing? And that was part of the reason, or should I say excuse, given for the heavy-handed police tactics.
I suppose water cannons and rubber bullets do not usually kill people which is more than you can say about the ISIS tactics in Iraq and Syria where suspected – suspected, I ask you! – homosexuals are thrown from tall buildings to a grisly death. What on earth would these sick savages do if the poor victims were definitely gay, rather than merely being suspected of it? If they somehow survive the fall, they have a plan B: stone them to death. This makes the Turkish authorities seem positively liberal by comparison.
These backward views, based on ancient religious superstition, are not unfortunately confined to islamic states, although at least in the USA same sex relationships are legal, even though the Godwhackers continue to claim that “God hates faggots”. Now, I don’t hate God because he hates gay people because it would absurd to hate someone who in all probability doesn’t exist, but if he did and these were really his views, I don’t think I’d want anything to do with him.
Quite why anyone should be concerned by a Pride march during Ramadan is beyond me. It’s not that the Pride organisers and supporters want to stop Ramadan or to influence others to go to Pride instead. They’re two rather different events, one celebrating superstition and the other reality. Each to their own.
If anyone still wonders what the point of pride actually is, then look no further than Istanbul today and the pockets of our own country where homophobia is still rife. Subsequent generations will wonder what all the fuss was all about.
