Quick Homophobia Check
In Israel, IDF Chief of Staff Dan Halutz had to do a little fence-mending with the local GLBT community. In an advanced, secular democracy like Israel, you have to apologize when you say things you ought not:
A week after saying things that angered the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community, IDF Chief of Staff Dan Halutz met with representatives of the community for a reconciliation meeting Tuesday evening. At the conclusion of the meeting Halutz ordered to appoint a person to be in charge of complaints based on sexual orientation in the army. Halutz Made his controversial statement during a farewell ceremony from the chief of staff's advisor on women's issues. In the ceremony, the army chief said that "there are two genders: Men, women, and there are those we cannot speak about." The words caused an uproar in the gay community in Israel, whose members said that "there are things that we shouldn't laugh about." During the meeting, which was aimed at reconciling the differences, Halutz said that in his words he was not referring to the people of the gay community and that he did not mean to hurt them. "The last thing I thought about when I was speaking was about the gay community. I did not mean your community or any other community for that matter," he said.
Obviously, he should have been a little more circumspect. But that's how these things work in advanced, modern societies like Israel - you overstep your bounds, you misspeak, you say something off the cuff that you shouldn't have... and you have to apologize. How else could it possibly work? Well, it's interesting you'd ask:
Gay and lesbian groups were demanding that the Indonesian government revoke local ordinances inspired by Islamic law that they claim violate their human and constitutional rights, a news report said Tuesday. The Association of Jakarta Transvestites; Arus Pelangi, a gay advocacy group; and the Srikandi Foundation, a women's advocacy group, appealed to the Justice and Human Rights Ministry to immediately strike down the ordinances, The Jakarta Post reported. 'Such ordinances are politically charged to please the majority,' Rido Triawan, director of Arus Pelangi, told ministry officials during a meeting Monday. Provincial districts, exercising new powers of autonomy, have sparked a legal and religious battle in recent months by issuing dozens of local bylaws inspired by Shariah, or Islamic law, including outlawing homosexuality, forbidding women from walking alone at night, banning alcohol and insisting female civil servants wear headscarves.
So the next time you see a leftist mob meandering through a street somewhere in Seattle or San Francisco - with their anti-Semitic signs and their stupid puppets - you'll be reminded of this. And you'll think to yourself "wow, those people are stupid. Like their puppets".
A week after saying things that angered the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community, IDF Chief of Staff Dan Halutz met with representatives of the community for a reconciliation meeting Tuesday evening. At the conclusion of the meeting Halutz ordered to appoint a person to be in charge of complaints based on sexual orientation in the army. Halutz Made his controversial statement during a farewell ceremony from the chief of staff's advisor on women's issues. In the ceremony, the army chief said that "there are two genders: Men, women, and there are those we cannot speak about." The words caused an uproar in the gay community in Israel, whose members said that "there are things that we shouldn't laugh about." During the meeting, which was aimed at reconciling the differences, Halutz said that in his words he was not referring to the people of the gay community and that he did not mean to hurt them. "The last thing I thought about when I was speaking was about the gay community. I did not mean your community or any other community for that matter," he said.
Obviously, he should have been a little more circumspect. But that's how these things work in advanced, modern societies like Israel - you overstep your bounds, you misspeak, you say something off the cuff that you shouldn't have... and you have to apologize. How else could it possibly work? Well, it's interesting you'd ask:
Gay and lesbian groups were demanding that the Indonesian government revoke local ordinances inspired by Islamic law that they claim violate their human and constitutional rights, a news report said Tuesday. The Association of Jakarta Transvestites; Arus Pelangi, a gay advocacy group; and the Srikandi Foundation, a women's advocacy group, appealed to the Justice and Human Rights Ministry to immediately strike down the ordinances, The Jakarta Post reported. 'Such ordinances are politically charged to please the majority,' Rido Triawan, director of Arus Pelangi, told ministry officials during a meeting Monday. Provincial districts, exercising new powers of autonomy, have sparked a legal and religious battle in recent months by issuing dozens of local bylaws inspired by Shariah, or Islamic law, including outlawing homosexuality, forbidding women from walking alone at night, banning alcohol and insisting female civil servants wear headscarves.
So the next time you see a leftist mob meandering through a street somewhere in Seattle or San Francisco - with their anti-Semitic signs and their stupid puppets - you'll be reminded of this. And you'll think to yourself "wow, those people are stupid. Like their puppets".
