by Grania Spingies
I’m not entirely sure about how I feel about this one, but it makes me uneasy.
This news story floated by me on Twitter:
The fuss seems to be that a right-wing affiliated Pride Parade plans to go through certain areas in Stockholm where there is a high density of Muslim immigrants.
This is being denounced as “an expression of pure racism” by left-wing and liberal groups.
I can’t read Swedish, but it seems the parade intends to engage in such acts as singing and kissing. Those can hardly be called racist.
Personally I think that deciding to put a Pride march through such an area is deeply misconceived, it’s entirely possible that it will end in violence which is—and always will be—a bad end to seek.
On the other hand, I think a Pride parade going through areas that were predominantly, for example, Southern Baptist would be praised by the media instead of denounced. None of us need try very hard to imagine the scorn and outrage if a Pride Parade was told that it could not march through through a neighborhood because the marchers had to be “culturally sensitive” to the religion of the ultra-conservative Christian inhabitants.
What is racist is to assume that all heterosexual Muslims in Stockholm are homophobes. From the response I am seeing, the Left is no better than the Right in their assumptions and pronouncements on this one.
Bottom line: I guess what makes me uneasy is how quickly the Left is to sacrifice certain people that they normally would champion, including women such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali and now an LGBT group, when it appears it might tread on the toes of certain religious sensibilities.
Do we really only care about gender equality and the right to sexual identity and freedom so long as it doesn’t offend religious communities? Do we only champion women and LGBT issues so long as they closely share our politics?
It makes this leftist liberal really uncomfortable.