Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2017/05/16/indonesia-gay-torture.html
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I once read that Jesus was given 39 lashes because forty was considered a death sentence.
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Depends on the method, and the circumstance.
In the Royal Navy, a few dozen lashes was a severe punishment, likely to leave the victim unconscious with a skinned back.
In the Australian convict colonies, OTOH, punishments of several hundred lashes were routinely delivered. At the end of one of those, spine and ribcage were clearly exposed. Unsurprisingly, they were often fatal.
AKAIK, Indonesia uses a cane instead of a cat. Still fucking awful, but not quite as deadly as an 18th century flogging.
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I don’t think I want to test that theory.
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Shit! Only now get I that biblical shout-out in Babylon 5!
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Yeah, that’s the flavor is Islam I can’t support or respect.
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Islam does not seem to be the relevant variable here.
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Poor buggers.
Off-topic but: one of my ancestors, a convict, was sentenced to 75 lashes for inciting a riot. I’ve often wondered if that was a death sentence.
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There are so many places I have on my do-not-go list. My job can go all over the world, but as a gay man, I often point out that it would be a problem. My coworkers are often surprised, then shocked. Then, they suddenly are the cool angry allies I always wanted. I feel like I am turning conservative straight people into outraged allies these days.
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As a cheerier possibility: harsh sentences were often commuted to lesser punishments, so he might not have got the full seventy five.
Back when I worked at the Supreme Court of NSW, I used to kill time hiding in the basement files. The court records from early colonial days are amazing; giant leather-bound books, filled with gorgeous calligraphy.
Nearly every line was some variation on the theme of “Patrick O’Shaunessy of Dublin, age 23, found guilty of horse theft. Sentenced to death by hanging, commuted to three dozen lashes plus twenty years’ hard labour”.
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o_0
Uh, yes it is. It’s Sharia Law. Their anti-gay stance is only part of the problem, as they back it up with corporal punishment (for this and a whole host of other transgressions). As much as one want’s to distance itself from more moderate Muslims, it is a thing. Their anti-gay stance is by no means UNIQUE, as many Christians are anti-gay, and even some secular governments (as your examples show.) I don’t support fundamentalist Christian sects like that either, not oppressive governments of any kind.
Even if Sharia law suddenly was OK with people being gay, there is a whole host of other things that will get you beaten, maimed, or killed that the west would find abhorrent. This includes our friendly friends the Saudis.
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Hmmm. Maybe? Hopefully. I’ll have to dig through papers to see if I can find out more.
And Hindus, and Buddhists, as shown in the Indian and Tibetan examples.
Persecution of the GLBT community is almost universal across pre-modern human cultures. Another thing that is almost universal is the role of organised religion in amplifying and maintaining that bigotry. The particular variety of religion does not appear to have a substantial influence on this factor.
I wouldn’t call Putin’s Russia a secular state; he’s been actively working to restore the historically close connection between the Russian church and state, and the new anti-gay laws were a major part of that.
Although I wouldn’t be surprised if there were still a few out there, I can’t think of an unambiguously secular country [1] that actively persecutes GLBT folks these days.
[1] I would not describe the USA as a secular country.
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I would. He’s using that connection as a tool for power and control. The US is far from a theocracy, even though some of it’s laws had roots in religion. Same with Britain who decriminalized being gay only in the 1960s. But arguing semantics like this diverts from the main point.
Again, Sharia Islam doesn’t hold a monopoly on being anti-gay, as many religious groups also have a similar stance. It is one of the few that still uses legal physical violence against them. But to make the statement that Islam isn’t “the relevant variable” or “have a substantial influence on this factor” is simply mind boggling. If they weren’t part of Sharia law, there would be no caning - period. If they were some other sect that persecute gays, then we would shift the blame to that belief structure.
As much violence gays still face in the US, there is also a lot of love and support, and there isn’t anything remotely like Sharia law. If someone did that in the name of their Christian God in the US, they would be liable for assault and a hate crime. That is a pretty big difference and the main factor is both the specific belief structure, and the fact that that structure is in legal power.
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Yeah, that’s horrible too. Of course it has nothing to do with the legal system, thank God.
Are we that gun shy we can’t call out bad actors of one group with out condemning the whole group. I don’t know how much more specific my disdain can be for one sect, and my acknowledgement that there aren’t other horrible sects of other religions.
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Sharia is simply the Arabic word for religious. It doesn’t mean anything special. But yes, religion-based civil laws or governments are often discriminatory. The particular religion is not important.
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You’re calling out the wrong “group” though.
The only relevant “group” is anti-LGBTQ bigots. That bigotry is the problem, and that is the group that needs to be called out.
Calling out Islam as the problem lumps in lots of people who aren’t bigots, and it ignores lots of people who are bigots. It’s not a useful piece of information to address the actual problem of anti-LGBTQ bigotry.
It’s worth noting that in terms of representing a larger group, the government of Aceh fails on two counts. Not only is the Acehnese brand of Islam more intolerant than that of many other Muslims elsewhere in the world, but the Acehnese legal system is different from the rest of Indonesia’s legal system based on a semi-autonomous status they received under a peace treaty to end a separatist war.
Read up a little before you demonize an entire religion or an entire country.
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Oh geeze. Yeah, ok. If they were simply religious they wouldn’t have the power to cane people for various transgressions. When it is the rule of law it means something more.
Sure it does, when you are talking about specific things, like lashes for gay sex in Indonesia. Who is doing that? In a broader sense of “theocracies are bad”, or “some religions are intolerant against gays”, then I agree the religion isn’t important.
No I am not! This article is about and Indonesia province with Sharia law. IF the only issue I have with Sharia law was their anti-gay stance, you would be correct. That isn’t the only issue, just the one highlighted in the article. Are you suggesting one would be happy to live under such laws if they dropped their anti-gay laws?
I didn’t call out Islam. I called out those who practice Sharia law. The specific “flavor”, or sect if you prefer. I don’t know how much more clear I can be about condemning one group, and not the rest of the others who don’t share the same beliefs.
I have repeatedly acknowledged there are many more anti-gay groups in the world. The article is about this one specific one. And in this case, yeah, this one group is who the problem is in this one location. They have the belief structure, they have the legal authority to enforce it, they chose to do so with physical violence that most people would find both cruel and unusual.
ETA:[quote=“davenotdave, post:20, topic:101086”]
Read up a little before you demonize an entire religion or an entire country.
[/quote]
Yeah - I didn’t do either of those things.
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