2y ago

‘A sense of betrayal’: liberal dismay as Muslim-led US city bans Pride flags

web.archive.org

In 2015, many liberal residents in Hamtramck, Michigan, celebrated as their city became the first in the United States to elect a Muslim-majority city council. They viewed the power shift and diversity as a meaningful rebuke of the Islamophobic rhetoric of then Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s campaign. This week many of those same residents watched in dismay as a now fully Muslim and socially conservative city council passed legislation banning Pride flags from being flown on city property that had – like many others being flown around the country – been intended to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community.

12 comments

Wow what a shock, religious people using it as an excuse for their bigotry? Who could have ever guessed that this could happen!

"Same bigotry, different religion"

Never trust someone religious. By definition they are ruled by fairy tales, and that's not a rational approach to living.
- The same is true for ideologies. It's the same irrational approach imo.

Dude I don’t want an any religion majority council.

Religion-driven identity is literally toxic to humanity.

Can I just say I’m pretty tired of democracy in general. Thing is that democracy always leads to simple majority rule, and let me be frank, the majority is racist, stupid, selfish, etc. The anti trans stuff proves this. As far as governments go I’m most in favor of a constitutional republic which protects our rights, and I wish we had more right and not just those which defend capitalism. However beyond that I’m leaning anarchy. This is as a leftist.
- While I'm with you partly (I don't think rights should be removeable to majority rule), I'm not sure how much effective democracy we actually have, as I don't see much of a straight line between the power of individuals to vote and the ability to gain policies that people actually want.

i think this line of thinking is easily the least useful anti-theist critique you can make of religion. even if we dispensed of all religion, spirituality, and superstition, most people would still be fundamentally irrational actors. religion might influence the ways in which they are and how that practically manifests—but let's be clear, most people do not even come close to having a coherent moral system or set of beliefs and that wouldn't even if you made them blank-slate irreligious people. the problem you are describing is not a religious problem, and it would exist even if we had no religion.
EDIT: fyi this post was attached to something previously but something fucked up happened so it's totally context-less now lol. upvote if you will but this makes no sense in the context it's now being displayed in
- religion is what gives them cause to act on their shitty way of thinking. It gives them an excuse that they can then go to sleep thinking they've done right.
  Without religion society would come down so fucking hard on them for their shitty ass views.. Sadly lots of people are religious so even those that don't agree, agree that it's against god or w/e stupid ass shit they come up with.
  
  you're just describing being an asshole here, which is not religion exclusive. how would your point—which appears to be this is some unique property of religion—reconcile someone like Mao Zedong? Mao was not a religious person in any meaningful sense of that word. he renounced Buddhism and was basically an anti-theist (and/or at least an atheist) for most of his life, and in fact presided over one of the largest systematic destructions of religious heritage in modern history during the Cultural Revolution.

12 comments