The new Falwellism

I am currently seeking to draw together some threads that have concerned me for some time. A couple of years ago, when I criticized homophobic elements in Islam (which are surely there), I was taken to task by some gay men residing in the Netherlands. In their view, oe must never criticize Muslims; that is Islamophobia.

Now, as I am coming to understand, this politically correct point of view has crystallized in the campaign against "homonationalism." The chief proponent of this view is a British Rutgers professor of South Asian origin, Jasbir Puar. Her views were recently echoed in a Berlin address by that high priest of postmodern obscurantism, Judith Butler. Earlier this year, an Amsterdam conference on the subject dissolved in acrimony.

With much effort, we have at last put the forces of homophobia into retreat in Western nations. But we are not supposed to advocate similar progress in the Third World: these people are simply different and we mustn't seek to impose our parochial Western norms on them. For their part, women and gays are perfectly content with their abject status in those countries. Therefore, let us not interfere; in fact, let us don sackcloth and ashes to atone for our hubristic efforts to interfere.

As we have had reason to understand in many countries, from China to Libya, human rights is not just a parochial Western value. It is something that all peoples seek to achieve. Let us not be cowed by these new apostles of Falwellism, who allege that homophobia is fine and dandy, as long as it is practiced by people of color.