CAUTION ADVISED

ISIS execution off a rooftop.

Facebook and Twitter rarely yield inspiration. Picking out substance from the avalanche of narcissistic mediocrity of conformist image-maintenance is like looking for gourmet dining in a Brazilian landfill. Neither appealing nor likely to yield much success.

Here and there I see rubber-stamp Liberal defense of Islam by gay men. This never ceases to astonish and annoy. Supporting Islam, or most organized religion, as a gay man is masochism without the sex. It is also a betrayal of all our best interests.

Islam at its most liberal is homophobic. At its most orthodox, it is lethal to gay men. Gay men are being executed throughout the Muslim world today. Shiite and Sunni alike stone, hang and behead gay men. ISIS goons throw gay men off buildings to amused crowds below, who then finish the job with rocks and kicking feet. If you have a Muslim friend who seems very accepting of you as a gay man, try challenging his/her religious beliefs on the subject of your sexuality. Go beneath the surface. Then ask him/her how he/she can even call themselves Muslim and claim love for you. 

And it's not only Islam which still deserves a skeptical approach by any gay man. The glowing references to Pope Francis by some gay men are simply self-demeaning. Lionizing a man who heads an organization which will not allow out gay men in its hierarchy is simply idiotic, even if you claim that Catholicism bears the ancient legacy of Christian agape. American Jews, often among the most vocally Liberal, are less thrilled when a member of their own family comes out as a gay man. The Jewish mandate of racial propagation clashes with childless gay male sexuality. If you don't know this, you haven't spent much time with a variety of Jewish gay men who have encountered this. 

The wonderful exposure of our gay lives by modern mass media in The West has yielded progress against violence and discrimination toward us in countries with civilized and more secular governments. But we are, and most likely will always be, a minority, vastly outnumbered. As such, we must be cautious, as well as visible. We do not serve ourselves and our brothers by just trying to be politically correct in a Liberal way on Facebook, Twitter or anywhere else. We get and maintain our rights by standing out and standing up for our difference. We have a responsibility to decry violence against our brothers in the name of any ideology.