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They Hate Our Freedoms: Homosexuality and Islam in the Tolerant West

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Abstract

In the April 2012 elections, the National Front took almost 26% of the vote from gay Parisians—ten points more than their heterosexual counterparts—after promising to defend gay citizens from the threat of a homophobic Islam. This is part of a pattern across the West, where the language of liberalism and of tolerance is used to further decidedly anti-liberal ideas. This trend is a new retelling of a story as old as the West itself, one which uses sexuality to construct a culturally inferior ‘Orient’ and to recreate the East/West binary which has long been a fundamental trope of Western imperialism. This chapter begins with an exploration of Western narratives of progress and goes on to explore how discourses of tolerance towards homosexuality are used across the world to construct and shape the boundaries of belonging between East and West. The binary between homosexuality and Islam forms a key part of this discourse in the West in the years after 9/11, where the trope has been successfully used to shore up support for nationalist political movements with decidedly illiberal aims.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Dorries (2018).

  2. 2.

    Dorries (2012).

  3. 3.

    Puar and Rai (2002); Duggan (2004); Puar (2007); Haritaworn et al. (2008) and Butler (2008).

  4. 4.

    Quoted in Poorthuis and Wansink (2002) and Bellafante (2018).

  5. 5.

    Locke (2003) [1689], 67.

  6. 6.

    Krämer (1999), 25–26.

  7. 7.

    Halperin (1989) and d’Emilio (1993).

  8. 8.

    Said, Orientalism (2003), 190.

  9. 9.

    Puar (2007), xiii.

  10. 10.

    Marlow and Thanthong-Knight (2018).

  11. 11.

    International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (2016).

  12. 12.

    Emmot (2017), 2; Balfour (1908).

  13. 13.

    Mill (2008) [1859], 68–69.

  14. 14.

    Volpp (2002).

  15. 15.

    Parveen (2019).

  16. 16.

    Pew Research Center (2017).

  17. 17.

    Puar (2007).

  18. 18.

    Rahman (2014), 275.

  19. 19.

    Duggan (2004), 50; Manalansan (2005), 142.

  20. 20.

    Nast (2002).

  21. 21.

    Florida and Gates (2001), 1.

  22. 22.

    Bawer (1993), 33–34; Sullivan (1995).

  23. 23.

    Mikdashi (2011).

  24. 24.

    Puar (2013b), 23–43.

  25. 25.

    Puar (2013a), 336–339.

  26. 26.

    Puar in Kuntsman and Miyake (2008), 14.

  27. 27.

    Norris and Inglehart (2002).

  28. 28.

    Inglehart and Welzel (2005); Inglehart and Baker (2000).

  29. 29.

    Andersen and Fetner (2008).

  30. 30.

    Quoted in Mosbergen (2015).

  31. 31.

    Mepschen et al. (2010), 963.

  32. 32.

    Schuyf and Krouwel (1999).

  33. 33.

    Fortuyn in Poorthuis and Wansink (2002).

  34. 34.

    Chanellor (2002).

  35. 35.

    Mepschen et al. (2010), 970.

  36. 36.

    Puar (2007), 205.

  37. 37.

    Fillieule and Duyvendak (1999), 195.

  38. 38.

    Charter of Intervention, quoted in Dard-Dascot (2012).

  39. 39.

    Fassin in Birnbaum (2012).

  40. 40.

    Parrot (2017).

  41. 41.

    Howell (2017).

  42. 42.

    Adamson (2017).

  43. 43.

    Gilligan (2018).

  44. 44.

    Katerina Dalacoura (2014).

  45. 45.

    Dialmy and Uhlmann (2005), 16.

  46. 46.

    Pitts, quoted in El-Royhayeb (2005), 123.

  47. 47.

    al-Saffar, quoted in El-Royhayeb (2005), 123.

  48. 48.

    El-Royhayeb (2005).

  49. 49.

    Babayan and Najmabadi (2008); McDonnel (2010).

  50. 50.

    Quoted in Washington Post (2007).

  51. 51.

    Najmabadi (2005a).

  52. 52.

    Ibid., 80–97.

  53. 53.

    Najmabadi (2005b).

  54. 54.

    Quoted in Puar (2007), 17.

  55. 55.

    Alam (2005).

  56. 56.

    Pew Research Center (2013).

  57. 57.

    Sonnini, quoted in El-Royhayeb, Before Homosexuality: 251–252.

  58. 58.

    Dawoud (2001).

  59. 59.

    Altman (2001), 2.

  60. 60.

    Awwad (2010), 318–336.

  61. 61.

    World Values Survey, Wave 5 (2005–2008).

  62. 62.

    Mavelli (2013), 163.

  63. 63.

    Mavelli (2012), 68–74.

  64. 64.

    McClintock (1995).

  65. 65.

    Haykel (2004), cited in Puar (2007), 106.

  66. 66.

    Al-Fathia Press Release (2004), quoted in Puar (2007), p. 91.

  67. 67.

    Puar, Terrorist Assemblages: 91.

  68. 68.

    Chow (2002), 107.

  69. 69.

    Tauqir in Haritaworn et al. (2008), 14.

  70. 70.

    Watney (1987), 98.

  71. 71.

    Cohen (2011), 16.

  72. 72.

    Quoted in Haritaworn (2015), 10–11.

  73. 73.

    Southern (1962), 28.

  74. 74.

    Quoted in Bruni (2018).

  75. 75.

    Butler (2008).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of St Andrews, St Andrews, UK

    Roderick McGlynn

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  1. Tampere Peace Research Institute, Tampere University, Tampere, Finland

    Marko Lehti

  2. Turku Institute for Advanced Studies, University of Turku, Turku, Finland

    Henna-Riikka Pennanen

  3. Department of History and Ethnology, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland

    Jukka Jouhki

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McGlynn, R. (2020). They Hate Our Freedoms: Homosexuality and Islam in the Tolerant West. In: Lehti, M., Pennanen, HR., Jouhki, J. (eds) Contestations of Liberal Order. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-22059-4_6

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