Arguments against a diverse humanity

In a conservative society, people argue that some humans deserve to be oppressed. An individual belief applies to all.

I am a believer of religion, since birth and up until today. This article is of my beliefs and my views on the issue. Call me an SJW. I don’t care, I just believe that as humans, we should know our capabilities and differences and accept those differences. We humans see each other as one species, in a different way than how we see other animals and their taxonomy. While we classify animals into subspecies when we spot differences in their appearances and properties as biological, we see humanity as part of one Homo sapiens species, differences in between us like skin color and facial features are seen only as differentiators in a social standpoint, where darker skinned humans maybe Melanesian or African while the lighter skinned humans are Caucasians or European.

This difference in how we see humanity in contrast to how we see other members of the Animalia taxon shows that the people in natural sciences see that we are different. We are a species, regardless of our regional differences and individual beliefs. That is until religion comes into play. Granted, most religions do believe that humans are special. We are God’s best creation, the one that can think, the one that can be rational. This notion is universal. The problem lies in the way scriptures in religion is only a form of human interpretation on religion itself.

We see this problem happen within Abrahamic religions, in Christianity there are slews of denominations and versions of the Bible. In Islam, denominations also vary and the teachings within the Qur’an are interpreted to each denominations’ beliefs. Hell, you can argue that some of these denominations are products of human creation. I am a believer of one of these Abrahamic religions. I am a Muslim since birth, I was raised one. But along the times I’ve grown distrust of it looking at how it and other religions like it treat other humans. I believe that God exists, and that our God (or Gods), are ultimately benevolent, tolerant, and is generous.

With that out of the picture. Let’s get into the big thing I want to talk about today. LGBTQ and the religious.

I live in a country that is known to be conservative in nature. The largest Islamic population even, with the minorities still consisting of a big chunk of Christianity (Protestant and Catholic) and the 3 other legally accepted religions (Hinduism, Buddhism, or Konghucu (a traditional Chinese religion)). You can’t really announce yourself to be an agnostic here. At the least, you get the status of a follower/believer/part of a “kepercayaan” (lit. belief). You can get an empty row for it lately but back in the day, you’d have to at least specify that you believe in a single God. Why is that so you may ask? Our ideology says so. The first principle of Pancasila is “Ketuhanan yang Maha Esa” (lit. Belief in the one and only God), it is an inherent part of our ideology that we believe in at least one God. Hence, the conservative nature of the people. This is further shown by the countless attempts to implement a form of or a part of Sharia law into our Constitution. The latest one you might have heard of being the last revision of the KUHP. The criminalization of premarital sex as most will know it as.

So why does it matter towards the LGBTQ community? Well, that same constitution at one point also targeted same-sex relationships. This shows how far gone the public view of homosexuality and the modern concept of gender is by the people. A major and vocal majority being the younger generation who grew up conservative or religious. We allies and the community within Indonesia call these vocal conservatives the “Nuruls” almost as a continuation of the previous “mbak-mbak Janji Jiwa” meme. You’d see a lot of them in any big tweet that even talk about anything remotely queer. Dive into an askrlfess tweet like the one I am embedding below.

or this ugm_fess tweet that is more direct in its means.

These two posts show how these nuruls — or ngabers for a more gender-neutral word — can spread hate and disapproval anonymously through “fess accounts” like the ones listed above. These accounts allow them to send whatever they want to while being mostly anonymous.

Out of the dozens of replies I have read in all of these tweets, there’s always a few big arguments that pop up from these nuruls or ngabers. One is that homosexuality is not natural and that it is deviant in nature. In reality, we have observed homosexual behaviors in other animals, there’s even a Wikipedia list for it with sub-sections. That’s considered natural, right? Well, these people argue that humans cannot be compared to animals, we have made that clear. Their point here, in relation to their religious views, is that humans have something other animals don’t, intellect. In their religious views — as I have also pointed out earlier — humans are different to animals because we are better than them, we have a working, rational intellect. They believe that homosexual behavior is not a thing that the human intellect can naturally cause, because they believe that the true human intellect would never defy what their scriptures say. In our case, that homosexuality is punishable.

This is also their second argument. That homosexuality is wrong in the eyes of many religions. Let’s dive into that. From the Muslim perspective, they always point out the story of the Prophet Luth, the one who was told to have committed sodomy with his followers. They also point out that even his wife who supported that belief got punished harshly for supporting. I would question then why Allah SWT would grant a prophet status to someone that he knows would commit sodomy and be punished for it. Is it really the correct interpretation in the first place? Who knows. I can only believe myself. From the Christian perspective, I am going to quote Myles Markham — a Christian Educator with a Master of Arts in Practical Theology — from his article on hrc.org

“From Genesis 2, to Matthew 19, to Ephesians 5, what these passages make explicit (and is echoed throughout the rest of Scripture) is something mentioned earlier: marriage is sacred for Christians because it can represent the enduring love between Christ and the Church. Christian partnership creates an opportunity to live out God’s love. While some kind of difference seems to be important in embodying this metaphor, understanding that all our differences can lead to empathy, compassion, good listening, sacrifice, and what it means to “love our neighbor as ourselves,” there is scant evidence that it is our biology or our views of gender that are the required difference.”

Markham, M. What Does the Bible Say About Homosexuality?. Human Rights Campaign. https://www.hrc.org/resources/what-does-the-bible-say-about-homosexuality

Markham argues that the whole denial of homosexuality comes from the belief that marriage is sacred for Christians, he mentioned that there is no specific way of saying that same sex marriage is not a part of that sacred belief. Like everything, it is up to interpretation. And interpretations came and go by the dozens.

All this is to say that religion is an individual matter. It’s what someone believes in. One can argue it’s highly subjective. And the way that believers of these religions treat others because of what they believe in is over the limit. Even in Islam, there exists a well-known phrase said by the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).

لَكُمْ دِيْنُكُمْ وَلِيَ دِيْن
read. lakum dīnukum wa liya dīn
trans. For you, your religion and for me my religion
Q.S. Al Kafirun:6

I believe that God is great, God is gracious, and God is tolerant. If he created us to be this way, he intends it. And you should too. We are all humans in the grand scheme of things. We see ourselves — through races and our differences — as one, as humans. And that worldview should also apply to the LGBTQ and other oppressed communities. Thank you for reading.

Well, there goes my second post of the night. It’s been fun and I’ll be sure to write more when I have any other thoughts in mind. Thanks for reading this far and as a closing note: all of the writings in this article are my own beliefs as an open believer of Islam. I hereby respect yours also, so if you would like to discuss the matter feel free. I hope the respect is mutual in the end. Take my analysis and writings here of no big significance. Thank you!

I might make a part two someday. There are a few more arguments I’d like to talk about that came up in mind. But that is for another night.

previously posted on Medium at https://medium.com/@fjello/arguments-against-a-diverse-humanity-d19c6bf59034