Like ISIS, US Christian Extremists Advocate Killing Gays – But ISIS Is Actually Doing It
While ISIS has been barraging the world media with horrific images — burning a Jordanian pilot alive and beheading journalists, aid workers and, most recently, 21 Egyptian Christians — it has also been executing gay men by hurling them to their deaths off of rooftops and other high places. Two men were also reportedly crucified for being gay.
ISIS appears to be handling these two kinds of public murders differently. By releasing videos of its executions of hostages, ISIS seeks international publicity as a gambit to stoke outrage, fear and horror in order to lure the civilized world into an Armageddon-like conflagration in the Middle East. The executions of gay men are handled with less fanfare, however, because ISIS views these murders as simply carrying out God’s judgment for the sin of homosexuality, based on scriptures in the Koran.
Most Americans view this sort of barbarism toward gays with detachment — it’s a faraway Muslim death cult acting out its extremist views. In fact, on the issue of homosexuality, ISIS is aligned with Christian extremists right here in the United States, many of whom also interpret God’s law as calling for the execution of gays.
There is a key difference, of course. While Christianists advocate killing gays, ISIS is actually doing it.