And if your overtly religious folks want to convert you by any many means, you blame a whole nation. You’d think the states in Africa conspired to forcefully convert one poor atheist to Islam!
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"If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?” Lewis Carroll
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Glad he got out, but blame is with his family, & the lying to get him on ”vacation”.
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Me too. But he should blame his family. Not an entire continent.
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Just as a side note, Dawkins has helped set up and fund and provide back channels and a network of contacts and proper documentation for people like this to have the means to get out of harm’s way. You know, actually doing something concrete for real people in real life facing very real danger from religious supporters. For such a tremendous bigot of Muslims as we are led to believe, isn’t that rather strange behaviour from Dawkins recognizing that Muslims themselves are the oppressed and the oppressor is directly motivated by Islam and then actually helping with money, time, and effort?
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I did not come away with a sense that the author was blaming an entire country or continent for his family’s attempt to scare away the gay and reassert his parent’s religious beliefs as the most important part of his identity. But it really did happen in Kenya and so Kenya cannot avoid part of the responsibility for allowing this kind of activity to go on… to the extent that the US was not unfamiliar with dealing with such cases. That in and of itself is rather revealing that this isn’t just the religious wingnuttery by one family but something far more widespread and sinister.
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I agree with you, tiledeb. He is blaming his family and culture, not the continent of Africa, let alone Kenya.
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Hello Brian,
Was he using that title as click-bait?
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Then his title was click-bait
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No. I don’t read it that way at all`. His title explains where the event occurred. There is no implication that “Africa” is to blame or the whole continent is a danger ground.
At the same time, one must admit that many (not all) African countries do have a problem with this. As does the United States-there are private prison schools in the South where families send kidnapped children to have the devil beaten out of them.
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Maybe the fault is mine. I think I would have worded the title differently. The only reason I clicked it in the first place was to know which African country was he kidnapped in and whether it was a tourist who had come visiting.
Of course and I can tell you, it is thanks mainly to evangelicals from the US of A
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I think we should blame Kenya for everything. Always 😀 Do you even pronounce it correctly? It’s pronounced Keen-ya.
Unfortunately gay conversion is a worldwide problem. And even though some countries are beginning to prohibit it, religious groups just find new ways of re-branding what they do. One of the biggest groups in the business was Exodus International – now Exodus Global Alliance, and based in Latin America. And long before that, when a southern European family thought they might have a gay son, making him become a priest was a common option…
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We can’t blame Keen-ya.
It is abhorrent that people think there should be gay conversion. I am appalled that LGBTs have been treated so badly in these parts. The blame mainly should be put at the feet of evangelicals.
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I agree that much of the religion-based homo paranoia is based on imported/imposed religion. And, the advocates seem to be doubling down, becoming more extreme. Places like Nigeria seem to be generating a coterie of televangelists and mega church pastors that are almost parodies of the American root source!
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There is also a group growing in my part of the world.
Church business seems to be the second best after war
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My Kenyan brother, thank you for publishing this article. I honestly had no idea that this issue was that prevalent and widespread. The fact that the problem has eluded the scrutiny of the US government is unbelievable. I simply cannot fathom how this happened. There are a multitude of federal agencies who maintain a close watch over any group that violates the freedoms and rights of others. If the entire US intelligence network had overlooked situations such as this, then we are truly not safe from any threat not only in the arena of national security but individual security as well. I always viewed the entire concept of “homeland security” with scepticism and distrust. It seems that I was correct after all.
Much love and many naked hugs!
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In this case, the victim is culturally Muslim, from a “suspect” ethnic group, and gay. Do we really think the TRUMP MISADMINISTRATION would care about such an individual
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I don’t think he’d care unless the person was WASP and extremely wealthy.
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I have my doubts
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I think it was unfortunate and happy he got help.
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Unfortunate, regrettable, inhuman and homophobic! 🙂
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Agree on all counts
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Scrutiny? Anti-gay sentiment and “treatments” have largely been promoted by Americans. Uganda didn’t have anti-gay laws until American Evangelicals went there…
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What I find strange usually is ignorant Africans shouting loudly gays are unAfrican.
They say that while wearing a suit and carrying a bible.
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The Evangelicals supplied them with that message. In a related matter, have you seen Reggie Yates’ documentary on millionaire pastors in South Africa?
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I used to think Nigerians were ahead on this until I started reading stories from down south.
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It’s a disease that spreads very easily.
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And people who catch it become insufferable. Ignorant and proud.
Bigots and proud.
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As a psych nurse we regularly had patients come on the ward who had been through gay conversion therapy. They were mentally in ruins…it was truly awful to see. People in the US don’t talk much about gay conversion anymore because one of the main religious people touting it decided to close up shop, but I assure you it is still done around the country. There are no laws that regulate christian “therapy” (and the therapists have no psychology training, they only have religious training). Everytime I see someone who has suffered through this type of therapy I want to SCREAM.
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Hey Mak…how did my comment appear? Did you find it somewhere or did WP tech support solve my problems?
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Hey V
How are you my friend
Your comment went to spam
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Huh…that’s weird. Other people have told me my comments were not held in their spam folders, but who knows what’s going on. I’m clearly blocked from every blog in WP!
Thanks for “finding” me! 🙂
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It must be a problem with WP
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WP tech support is not so great. So far yours is the only blog I can comment on. They swear up and down I’m not getting caught in the spam filters (despite you finding me in spam). Then they insisted EVERY SINGLE individual blogger on WP must have personally blocked me for spam, and I’m to contact each one for removal…this includes blogs I’ve never commented on before. Their last email stated, “we can’t help you anymore.” *eye roll*
I’m giving up for now and will try problem solving again in a few days. Take care friend!
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I get your comments in my email, V.
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Hummm, that’s interesting. I have no idea why the comments would email but not post on the blog. After 25+ exchanges with WP tech support this morning, I’m going to guess they wouldn’t have any idea either. 😉
Thanks for letting me know, Tildeb.
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Has it occurred to them that would be strange? Why would your close friends block you? Why would I block you?
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That was a narrow escape. I think we should recognize the actual motivation behind this sort of ill treatment of other people: “extremely conservative” regardless wether they are African, American, European or what ever. The shared value base behind such abhorrent and inhumane action, people do take in all sincerety towards even their own family members is not Muslim, Christian, or any other single particular religion, but instead the extreme conservatism. That they have some traditional values, they have never, nor never do dare to question, that are not based on what really happens, but rather on faith based assumptions and beliefs. Heck, even atheists of the former Soviet Union could engage in such atrocity, by assuming a conservative stance of values against a minority group, such as the homosexuals.
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It sure was a narrow escape.
Education is the solution to some of the ills of our generation.
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And I hope you or your relatives were not in danger of the mad man with a knife
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Thank you for your concern. Nobody I know was in any danger. The entire debacle has blown out of proportion.
I am sad to say we Finns are a knife weilding nation and proud of it. The Finnish knife “puukko” (or “Finka” – the Finnish lady – as the Russians call it) is a legend to the Finns and our neighbours, as all Russians and Swedes know every Finn carries a knife and is a potential assasin. We in Finland have more guns per capita, than the US and we kill each other in rather high rate, but we do it mostly with knives and fists.
This Moroccan dude simply came to the wrong country, if he thought he could make an impression by weilding a knife. What he did was not so unusual, though the motive was. The Finnish police had gunned him down within three minutes after they had had the first distress call and in typical Finnish style they did not kill him, but shot him in the leg. Because here you do not pay for your crimes with your death, rather with your life.
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I didn’t know this.
What’s the obsession with knives? Are you always eating something that needs cutting? 🙂
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Haha. No, but the Finns traditionally have carried knives around as a kind of multi-utility-tool. One of those utilities might be making more tools from wood (hence the Finnish name for the knife – puukko – wich refers to wood – puu) or it could serve as a nifty can opener, or as a close combat weapon. In the 1960ties and -70ties a lot of Finns immigrated to Sweden, where they were seen as a bit of second class citizens as many of them did not know the language or spoke it with a simple sounding accent. Many Swedes – naturally – thought, that since Finns do not speak Swedish like natives, they must be numbskulls, and you know “racial” prejudices – when someone seems like a numbskull, it is OK to treat them like dirt. The Finnish counterreaction was to present the knife they typically carried, in a desperate attempt to gain respect. What they gained was fear, not respect. The Swedes started to call the Finns, “Finnjävlar” or Finnish devils. But in the long run, the Swedish society learned a lot from this experience, and today it is one of the most welcoming societies for an immigrant. Finns learned too. That it is part of our national culture to carry a knife and that in a desperate situation one has the last straw of violence with a knife, while those were negative lessons, there was one good one too, wich is that never let immigrants to isolate themselves from the rest of the society by living in separate ghettoes, because since that is what Finns did in Sweden and nothing good came out of it.
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Thanks for this.
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This is what I’ve been trying to tell people for years! Love the blog!
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