"Others see the fight for queer rights and anti-colonialism as intertwined because anti-gay laws were first introduced in Palestine by Britain in 1885 - though former colonial powers have since abolished such legislation in their own countries."
I thought (quite wrongly obviously) that professors (even of "queer studies") and journalists would be aware that the area now comprising Israel was part of the Ottoman Empire until the end of WWI, ie prior to 1918.
So, I just had to make a quick immersion in the history of indecency laws in Britain and the Ottoman Empire to see how much the professor and the journalist had misunderstood.
The 1885 law mentioned is a British Law, named the Labouchere amendment. Previous to this amendment homosexuality was only illegal in regards to the act of buggery, for which the punishment was to be kept in penal servitude for life.This changed when Henry Labouchere, Liberal MP for Northampton and strong opponent of homosexuality, introduced Section 11 of the 1885 Criminal Law Amendment Act which made all homosexual acts of ‘gross indecency' illegal. It was under this Act that Oscar Wilde and Alan Turing were convicted and punished for committing homosexual acts.
Did this have anything to do with how homosexuality was perceived in the Ottoman Empire?
No. The Ottoman Empire had made changes to its secular laws in 1858 (sic!). Partly those laws that dealt with indecency or homosexuality were introduced from French (Napoleonic) laws of 1810. This new law has been interpreted as decriminalization of homosexuality in the Ottoman Empire. However, what was definitely a case of reducing the criminality of same-sex acts in France was possibly not the same in the Ottoman state where two legal systems - the secular Ottoman, and the religious Sharia - co-existed.
One scholarly analysis of the legal reforms of the Ottoman state in the mid-19th century comes to the conclusion that the adoption of the French laws increased the penalties for same-sex acts. (Ozsoy: Decolonizing Decriminalization Analyses: Did the Ottomans Decriminalize Homosexuality in 1858?).
However, what needs to be kept in mind is that this concerned the secular legal system. What was more important was that the Ottomans were following the Hanafi school of law, which classes sodomy as a ta'zir crime (misdemeanor) where the penalty fell under the discretion of the state. What has happened since the end of WWI is that (i) the secular state has lost power in many Muslim countries and (ii) that in contrast to the Ottomans those religious schools that have gained the upper hand are those that consider homosexual acts as hadd crimes - ie crimes punishable by death.
In conclusion; the laws enacted in European countries had little effect on how homosexuality was perceived and punished by the Ottomans. The most important facts were to what extent secular or religious laws were adhered to, and what Quarnic interpretation was the leading one.
QED
They then became the persona non grata of the Arab world because they were just violent and would usurp any authority placed over them, They did not become “Palestinian” until Yasser Arafat called them that.No one wants the so called Palestinians. Jordan does not, Egypt does not, and Lebanon and Syria do not either.
So when the good professor starts using terms such as Palestine, he is establishing myth as reality. They have no claim over Israel because Judea and Sumeria were Jewish territory for 3000 years. A fact.And the God of Israel has been communicating with Jews over 4000 years continuous , in the same language, Hebrew.
YWHW regards “homosexuality: and the Sodomites as unnatural, a sin against humanity itself.He destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah which had been taken over by the spiritually twisted and sexually disfigured men and women there.The men in Sodom tried to bugger two angels ( elohim) and this initiated the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, where the aftermath of a rain of sulfur can be seen even today, along with the melted strata in the geological record.
Once these sodomites place themselves in a kingship rule over free people, the whole system becomes twisted, unnatural and really sick, we have no sovereignty, they make war with Israel and Russia in the name of twisted ideology. YWHW will not allow this to go on for long. So it is necessary that we remove these Sodomites from rule over our governance and our institutions of learning. They deserve no more consideration, human rights than any other human being, and they need to return to obscurity where they belong. Muslims are Sodomites. They hide it, but they direspect women, and they exercise love of men. The sodomy happens in secret. The colonial record is full of how boys were prepared for sodomy even before puberty. The women of the harems exercised Lesbianism, and were kept separated from any male that was pubescent.This is also hidden today. Arab women hold a deep hatred for their men which is rarely overcome. So all this modern schtick about how Muslims detest sodomy is untrue. They just punish it when it becomes public.And in proivate the men cornhole the hell out of each other, expecially the ultra religious Muslims.