The New Homophobia: Can We Confront It?

Hat tip Jihad Watch

A former student at the State University of New York at Potsdam, Anjam Hussain, has been charged with threatening to kill a gay professor at the school.  His threats contained anti-gay language.

https://www.jihadwatch.org/2016/09/new-york-muslim-indicted-for-death-threats-against-suny-professor

My question is why this suspect has a problem with gays. While the Jihad Watch and Creeping Sharia posts do not indicate a religious motive, we know that in many parts of the world, gays are being persecuted on Islamic religious grounds. That includes gays being thrown off of roof tops in places like Gaza (by Hamas)  and Syria (by ISIS). Islamic texts have many verses that mandate death for gays. We must also keep in mind the recent attack on a gay nightclub in Orlando that resulted in numerous deaths.

Gays in this country and others in the West have made great strides in terms of gaining tolerance. I personally do not wish to see those gains reversed as my own attitude towards homosexuality has evolved over the years since I was young in a time when gays had to live in the closet.

We cannot deny that our own Christian teaching and the Bible have negative references to homosexuality in that it is regarded as a mortal sin. On the other hand, we have many Christian churches and pastors that welcome gays and perform same sex marriages. ( I personally do not agree with same sex marriages, but I regard the law as being settled.) The main point to remember is that we are not killing them.

I don't have a problem if someone has objections to homosexuality based on religious teaching. There are many Christians who have that belief as do Muslims. That teaching must not, however, lead to violence against gays. Our laws are firm on that point.

We also need to have an open discussion on the degree of threat to our gays coming from Islam in the US. The gay lobby, to this point, much like the feminists, seem  not to want to confront Islamic bigotry to gays.

It behooves us to know if these threats are connected to Islamic religious teaching.