news US's first Muslim-majority city bans pride flag

[Nido]

9 minutes ago, Communion said:

 

To her credit, Rashida condemned the decision.

As she should? I mean this is giving me "thoughts and prayers" energy. I hope she does something to challenge her own people and make a good example of being the liberal woman of Islamic faith then

 

 

 

[Marry The Gods]

2 hours ago, Redstreak said:

Well my narrative is that all religion is bad, yours is that brown people are somehow like genetically extra hateful

You know that Muslim is a religion and not a race right? Not all muslims are brown. It's like how Latino is also not a race but a culture of many different people from all shades and races. 

[VOSS]

From last week:

 

Quote

Amid growing tensions between the city's LGBTQ+ and Muslim communities, Hamtramck City Council voted unanimously this week to approve a new law to penalize minority and ethnic intimidation, a move that was strongly opposed by ACLU Michigan and queer activists who fear the law will be used to target them.

 

"The ACLU will be watching very closely" to see if this ordinance punishes activists and protesters, Ramis Wadood, an ACLU attorney, said at the Tuesday council meeting.

 

The new ordinance sets punishments for anyone found guilty of intimidating or harassing someone "because of that person's race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or national origin," according to the text of the law. The incident also has to involve physical contact, damaging property, placing an object on a vehicle or making threats. The punishment is up to 90 days in jail and a $500 fine.

 

The Tuesday vote came after an intense debate and heated exchange between the all-Muslim elected leadership and liberal activists, with both sides accusing the other of being intolerant during the nearly four-hour council meeting. A queer activist called for more protests while Hamtramck Mayor Amer Ghalib fired back at some LGBTQ+ advocates, telling them: "You are the one who is causing all this tension, not us. You can't come and threaten us."

 

Activists are trying "to make it (Hamtramck) look like it's all queer," Ghalib added. "That's not going to happen."

 

After the council voted in June to ban LGBTQ+ pride flags from being flown on city property, some activists called for a year of protests. They have been placing pride posters, stickers and other symbols in support of their cause on some buildings and walls, including over the posters of some elected officials. Liberal activists fear the new law will be used to fine and jail them for their protests against city officials. They said there has been a spike in vandalism this summer against pride flags and attacks against LGBTQ+ people.

 

Ghalib has faced criticism for meeting two times in recent weeks with Michael Flynn, a former Trump aide who has previously made remarks seen as anti-Muslim.

 

"If I disagree with you, you can't call me a bigot or a terrorist," Ghalib said. "You come to warn me about the Republicans ... you're acting worse."

 

Ghalib appeared to make a reference to some children facing $1,000 fines for recent vandalism. He didn't offer specifics on the case, but suggested police overreacted.

 

He and Mayor Pro Tem Mohammed Hassan, one of six members of the council, said people who obey the law have nothing to fear from the new law, implying that people opposing the law are the ones committing acts of vandalism. Hassan said LGBTQ+ stickers have been placed on his forehead and mouth on images of him on posters.

 

"I don't know why some people are worried if you have no intention to keep doing it," Ghalib said. "I'm not worried because I have no intention to do it. Put 10 years in jail (in the ordinance), I don't care, because I'm not going to do it."

 

LGBTQ+ activist Gracie Cadieux called for continued protests, speaking out against the new ordinance

 

"We all know why this ordinance exists, because of our response to your flag ban," Cadieux said of the new law. "You brought about every sticker, every poster. Every action that has occurred from the Queer community directed at this council has been by your own design. You guys ... chose to do that on June 13, when I stood up here and I told you, if you chose to brand your hate on civic government we would respond, we would resist, we would protest you."

 

Before the council members voted to approve the ordinance, she said to them, using an expletive: "If you pass this resolution I am calling upon the queers of Hamtramck to once again paper ... this city with stickers, with protests, with outright dissent to what you're doing."

 

Wadood, the ACLU attorney, said at the meeting that as a Muslim man with brown skin, he's sensitive to the issue of hate crimes targeting minorities in Hamtramck, but "this ordinance is not the right approach."

 

Ghalib said during the meeting he has been trying to meet with LGBTQ+ activists, but alleges they are demanding he first put a pride flag outside City Hall. He indicated there may an upcoming meeting with some activists.

Source

[Yanko]

disgusting vile religion

 

Edited September 19, 2023 by Yanko

[Graves]

Quote

Ghalib has faced criticism for meeting two times in recent weeks with Michael Flynn, a former Trump aide who has previously made remarks seen as anti-Muslim.

 

"If I disagree with you, you can't call me a bigot or a terrorist," Ghalib said. "You come to warn me about the Republicans ... you're acting worse."

See, this is kinda what I mean. Soon as I saw the council was in the business of meeting with Trump types, I had no doubt. I really don't see this as an "Islam vs western values" issue, to me this just looks like another head on the hydra of America's religious right attacking queer communities. It might be done through a Muslim group rather than a Christian group this time, but it's the same battle imo? Am I wrong here?

[SinnerCity]

Religion truly is the worst controlling mechanism for modern society. 

These people have absolutely nothing more than hatred for anything that’s different from them, and I’m just not talking about this specific and unfortunate topic but rather as a common thing amongst all religions.

 

I respect everyone's beliefs but to try and defend this and somehow find a positive in all this madness is despicable. A minority becomes a majority and the first thing they do is to go after another’s minority right? Like, have we not learned anything? 

 

I can only imagine how hard it must be for the LGBTQ+ Muslim youth to navigate this world and embrace who they are when things like this happen.

Edited September 19, 2023 by SinnerCity

[Navy4Life]

17 minutes ago, Yanko said:

disgusting vile religion

Girl delete this. I got a 3 month ban for saying something similar. 

Edited September 19, 2023 by Navy4Life

[Communion]

52 minutes ago, Zaram said:

Meanwhile you are the one constantly dismissing hate crimes against queer people by Muslims in the world.

Except you have no evidence of this because such is not true. 

 

You are saying the only valid way to criticize conservatives who happen to be Muslim is to denigrate everyone of that faith and not just criticize the conservative view. That's nonsense and why none of you have been able to answer something as simple as the below:

 

1 hour ago, Communion said:

You're now trying to pivot. Of course conservative Muslims cite their belief in Islam as the root of their views. No one said otherwise. But again, Muslim and conservative are not synonyms. 

 

Conservative Catholics similarly genuinely believe their faith propels their views. But that doesn't then stop the existance of progressive Catholics. Joe Biden is an huge pro-choice advocate. Should I say I won't vote for Joe Biden because he is a Catholic and I find most Catholics to be right-wing? What's more productive - for my politics to be anti-Catholic or anti-conservative? Isn't it in my political interests to convince Catholics my progressive views are actually in sync with their faith, not to condemn their faith entirely?

 

You've yet to show how anyone in any way is enabling or defending conservatives who happen to be Muslim. You ignored the simple question of - how does it enable conservative Muslim to condemn their actions as a reality of conservatism instead of as an indictment of everyone who shares their faith? Why does a criticism of conservative Muslims have to include an attempt to essentialize all Muslims?

 

[Summerboy95]

Start the Muslim discrimination trend again. Let's see who wins. And this time there won't be support from the LGBT+ community 

[Communion]

27 minutes ago, Nido said:

As she should? I mean this is giving me "thoughts and prayers" energy.

What tangible action do you expect of a federal politician to do with regards to a local municipal council besides rightfully condemning the action?

[BOOMBAYAH]

11 minutes ago, Communion said:

Except you have no evidence of this because such is not true. 

 

You are saying the only valid way to criticize conservatives who happen to be Muslim is to denigrate everyone of that faith and not just criticize the conservative view. That's nonsense and why none of you have been able to answer something as simple as the below:

 

 

Give it up delicious

[illia]

[ZIVERT]

30 minutes ago, VOSS said:

From last week:

 

Source

Yikes 

[Talento]

35 minutes ago, VOSS said:

From last week:

 

Source

 

This mayor clearly has an agenda in making queer people to be the villains. This is scary stuff.

[Talento]

33 minutes ago, Subomie said:

See, this is kinda what I mean. Soon as I saw the council was in the business of meeting with Trump types, I had no doubt. I really don't see this as an "Islam vs western values" issue, to me this just looks like another head on the hydra of America's religious right attacking queer communities. It might be done through a Muslim group rather than a Christian group this time, but it's the same battle imo? Am I wrong here?

????

 

First the mayor/council ban pride flags, queer people call for protests and they pass a law to punish "intolerance against religion", that's clearly set up to target said queer people even further. 

 

No one would take "Christophobia" seriously (and they shouldn't) but because we're talking about Islam suddenly they're poor oppressed minorities and the queer people fighting back are deemed "Islamophobic" intolerant bigots.

 

Yes, this is a problem specifically tied to Islam. 

[Tsareena]

this same flag ban is happening in multiple conservative school districts. homophobia is really emboldened in the US. this city has been muslim majority for a while and you think it's just their religion encouraging them to finally pull the trigger on this

[Graves]

1 minute ago, Talento said:

????

 

First the mayor/council ban pride flags, queer people call for protests and they pass a law to punish "intolerance against religion", that's clearly set up to target said queer people even further. 

 

No one would take "Christophobia" seriously (and they shouldn't) but because we're talking about Islam suddenly they're poor oppressed minorities and the queer people fighting back are deemed "Islamophobic" intolerant bigots.

 

Yes, this is a problem specifically tied to Islam. 

 

It's a problem, I agree. But I'm not seeing what you mean about it being tied to Islam specifically? Christian city councils and school boards do the same thing with banning pride flags being flown and other introducing other bogus laws to drown out queer dissent. I'm not trying to be contrarian or go into whataboutism just to be different here, I think they're both vile and should be shut down entirely - I'm no fan of Islam, for the record.

 

I just don't see what the difference between this and the other cases I mentioned is? Legitimately! I want to be educated here if I'm off-base. To me, they're equivalent in every way: religious right nutjobs getting into power and using it to discriminate against queer people. All I'm saying is that it's indicative of America's extremist conservatism movement, and not exclusive to Muslims as you said. That's all.

[bad guy]

2 hours ago, MingYouToo said:

Using history of American/European government intervention in sociopolitics to justify why a certain sect of people behave a certain way does not change the fact that right now, in this moment, there is a rising influx of hate crimes directed towards the gay community by muslims. 

That's what they do in order to distract from the issue. It's all about whataboutism's and having to go back decades and centuries to the past ills of Christians/Catholics in order to try and silence the cancer that Islam is in Western culture. Of course they will also ignore Middle Eastern countries under Islamic rule that are stuck in the Dark Ages socially, unlike other civilized societies that may incorporate Judeo-Christian beliefs into their laws/culture. It's disingenuous and most people know this. Just look at the devastating ramifications the refugee crisis has had on Europe.

 

These people probably know this as well, but are so entrenched in Tumblr'd/Twitter'd "wokeness" that they have no shame in contradicting themselves and being hypocrites in the name of fighting oppression. Which is ironic given the oppressive nature of Islamic countries. But don't look at the reality in front of you! Focus on the oppressive Christian Crusades during Medieval times! Christian bad too! Oh and somehow it's all Europe's fault too! 

[wastedpotential]

1 minute ago, bad guy said:

That's what they do in order to distract from the issue. It's all about whataboutism's and having to go back decades and centuries to the past ills of Christians/Catholics in order to try and silence the cancer that Islam is in Western culture. Of course they will also ignore Middle Eastern countries under Islamic rule that are stuck in the Dark Ages socially, unlike other civilized societies that may incorporate Judeo-Christian beliefs into their laws/culture. It's disingenuous and most people know this. Just look at the devastating ramifications the refugee crisis has had on Europe.

 

These people probably know this as well, but are so entrenched in Tumblr'd/Twitter'd "wokeness" that they have no shame in contradicting themselves and being hypocrites in the name of fighting oppression. Which is ironic given the oppressive nature of Islamic countries. But don't look at the reality in front of you! Focus on the oppressive Christian Crusades during Medieval times! Christian bad too! Oh and somehow it's all Europe's fault too! 

The thought process literally has to be 'how can we make this about European or American oppression and colonialism', because there's no sane or logical reason for this to get the support that it has in leftist/progressive spaces without that logical pipeline 

[kataraqueen]

Spoiler

it's been rly disheartening to read all these posts tbh... my Muslim family has been nothing but accepting to other people and my mother, sister and brother have all shown their undying love for me after I came out. My mom was the one to gain her father's house even though she had three older brothers and she's always been an extremely progressive yet undeniably Muslim woman
 

The reason I don't live in my mom's hometown right now is because orthodox Christians committed a genocide and killed 10k people in one day. Not once have I blamed Christianity as a whole for that, and I'll never look at a random Christian as less than for it. When I revealed in middle school that I'm Muslim, not because I actively impose it but just because I don't eat pork, I got bullied for it and eventually had my only ever black eye because of it.
 

Reading these comments from queer people who are supposed to be my ultimate safespace, yet have you guys are reject my perspective and everything I'm saying so hard feels bad. Maybe I truly am in the wrong and hopefully I'll learn more in the future to gain more perspective. Like I understand everyone's feelings especially because the people referenced in the OP are so openly bigoted but idk it feels sad that's all I'll say about it ig

i put it in a spoiler just cus i wanted to vent and release my thoughts but it's ultimately maybe a little off-topic lol

 

OT: what a sh.tfest
 

[Talento]

26 minutes ago, Subomie said:

It's a problem, I agree. But I'm not seeing what you mean about it being tied to Islam specifically? Christian city councils and school boards do the same thing with banning pride flags being flown and other introducing other bogus laws to drown out queer dissent. I'm not trying to be contrarian or go into whataboutism just to be different here, I think they're both vile and should be shut down entirely - I'm no fan of Islam, for the record.

 

I just don't see what the difference between this and the other cases I mentioned is? Legitimately! I want to be educated here if I'm off-base. To me, they're equivalent in every way: religious right nutjobs getting into power and using it to discriminate against queer people. All I'm saying is that it's indicative of America's extremist conservatism movement, and not exclusive to Muslims as you said. That's all.

No one said it's exclusive to Muslims. The thing is, in this case, the mayor (and council) got elected through liberal talking points. That's what makes it different. And then once they're in power it's pride flags getting banned, "gay people are acting worse than republicans!" "I'm being called a terrorist!" "The LGBT+ community are bigots!"... And now they're already flirting with the Trump minions.

 

Do you seriously not see the issue? Republicans would've never vote for a majority Muslim council. This is of "our" own doing. And now they're victimizing themselves while villainizing LGBT people, and if anyone calls them out they're "islamophobic" - and in the case of Michigan specifically - you're getting up to 90 days in jail or a $500 fine. 

Edited September 19, 2023 by Talento

[Mydilemma2.0]

4 hours ago, Obsession said:

That has nothing to do with this, and that kind of thinking ignores the fact that the Israeli army purposefully blackmails LGBTQ Palestinians who seek asylum in Israel and jails trans Israeli citizens in the wrong prisons. 

 

Obviously, we can't allow Islam to steer the course of laws in the United States, much in the same way Christianity should not steer the course of laws in the United States. That still does not give Israel the right to brutalize and uproot Palestinians from their home - and this deliberate attempt to conflate the two schools of thought is very insidious.

Source : “trust me”

The topic is not about Israel , the topic is about that all people over defending Muslim, while not even realizing that if they land their feet on one of the countries they so protective about - they would have gotten killed… 

 

and btw , that same concept of kids stepping on pride flags , have been going on for ages with US/Israel flags , I feel sorry for these kids that are literally had nothing to do with it, but get sucked in by their horrible parents, and this cycle will continue , if people will keep burry their heads in the sand.

[dumbsparce]

Not 11 pages. Tonight's gon' be good

[byzantium]

40 minutes ago, Talento said:

No one would take "Christophobia" seriously

Have you ever met a Christian?  They have such a victim complex and constantly think they are oppressed. And people agree with them. 

[Graves]

1 minute ago, Talento said:

No one said it's exclusive to Muslims. The thing is, in this case, the mayor (and council) got elected through liberal talking points. That's what makes it different. And then once they're in power it's pride flags getting banned, "gay people are acting worse than republicans!" "I'm being called a terrorist!" "The LGBT+ community are bigots!"... And now they're already flirting with the Trump minions.

 

Do you seriously not see the issue? Republicans would've never vote for a majority Muslim council. This is of "our own doing. And now they're victimizing themselves while villainizing LGBT people, and if anyone calls them out they're "islamophobic" - and in the case of Michigan specifically - you're getting a $1,000 fine. 

No, no, I agree with you on that. I get what you're saying - this is vile, the city council is vile, and trying to smokescreen criticism and dissent as "calling us terrorists" is clear dishonesty and gaslighting. We agree on that part, totally.

 

It's not islamophobic to call these people out as bigots, as nutjobs, as hateful traitors - they are! And we should call them that.

 

I just think that this thread is very quick to snowball beyond legitimate criticism and into outright hateful rhetoric against the wrong people. That's why I don't like framing this as just a Muslim issue. Because people on here very quickly generalize entire communities on that front. And it's not cool.