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This is a common claim

Be interesting to know whether there’s anything to it or not.

Tom Daley has blamed “colonialism” for homophobic laws in place across the Commonwealth.

The Olympic diving champion stars in a new BBC documentary in which he visits “the most homophobic countries in the Commonwealth”, examining the claim that the British Empire left a legacy of anti-LGBT legal codes in post-colonial nations.

Daley has stated that one interview in the documentary, which will air on BBC One on Tuesday, opened his eyes to “where that homophobia stemmed from in the first place, and it is a legacy of colonialism”.

China never was colonised – nor Ethiopia, nor really Thailand. So, homophobia better or worse in those places?

And if we’re limiting ourselves to British colonies, is it worse in Nigeria than, say, Senegal? Or even, to equalise religious influences, Northern Nigeria and Senegal?

Heck, we could even talk about Arab and Mulsim colonialism if we wanted to.

But that initial contention. How much of whatever homophobia there is out there is a result of colonialism? And what’s the proof? We’ve a large enough data set to be able to glean some information, no?

31 thoughts on “This is a common claim”

  1. Is imposing Christianity or Islam colonialism? What about existing moral attitudes before the French and English turned up in African countries? Too many possible factors to be able to say it was colonialism.

  2. It’s a massive generalisation, but most of the world had little or no problem with homosexuality until Christians or Muslims turned up. It’s only the Abrahamic religions that have a problem with it. Most other religions couldn’t care less.

  3. So what if Britain did impose it’s then morality on colonies? Since then Britain has changed and it was up to former colonies if they wanted to change as well. If they chose not to, that was their choice.

    Why do we have to put up with this fuckwittery?

  4. Lady boys are fully integrated into Thai society and appear frequently on TV in dramas, chat shows, ads etc. Of course, ours actually look like birds to the casual observer, not like hairy arsed stokers in cheap polyester frocks.

  5. Considering the nuisance the more arsey (sic) rainbow people cause in Western society, I can’t see any of these countries wanting the same.

  6. Blackpool’s Jake Daniels came out early this year – the 2nd gay pro footballer to come out, and the only living one as Fashanu no longer with us.
    Daley reckoned in his Christmas speech that the % of gays in pro football was similar to that in wider society. Lineker said other players would be inspired to come out now.
    Still waiting.
    Mental age of 13 year olds on this, both of them.

  7. PS – anybody remember 5 minutes ago when Gareth Thomas was the exemplar of why you shouldn’t do homophobia, because Love is Love and they just want to love, bigots?

    Now he’s being sued for (allegedly) giving a friend HIV.

  8. Since ‘LGBT… whatever’ is a recent contrivance, since same sex liaisons between women were not illegal in UK, only between men, how could colonialism result in anti-LGBT codes across the Commonwealth? Child Daley should stick to jumping off high places into swimming pools and keep his uninformed opinions to himself.

    People who blame everything on ‘colonialism’, must believe societies had no rules, customs, traditions, laws before colonialism.

  9. There must have been something in the rules for District Commissioners about bumming baboons.

    I shall check my Sanders of the River.

  10. most of the world had little or no problem with homosexuality until Christians or Muslims turned up. It’s only the Abrahamic religions that have a problem with it

    The pagan Irish were said to drown them in bogs, but it’s true that sodomy was very popular in pre-Christian Greece and Rome. Often practiced on child slaves who’d be savagely beaten if they tried to resist. And India, of course, still has gangs of eunuchs who kindnap unwary little boys, castrate them, and force them into a life of prostitution.

    I’m just not sure any of this is a good argument against Yahweh or Allah.

  11. ‘rules for District Commissioners about bumming baboons.’

    Don’t remember this in any of my copies Otto!!

  12. most of the world had little or no problem with homosexuality until Christians or Muslims turned up

    True. Little Afghan boys had to wait for the return of the Taliban to be protected from bum-rape, something prevalent in Afghanistan’s despicable culture. When the post-Christian West invaded 20 years ago, soldiers were told to turn a blind eye and deaf ear to the practices of our ‘allies’ who were delighted to get back to traditional pastimes. A few soldiers were court-martialled for dishing out some ‘colonialism’ to Afghan nonces.

  13. Bongo: so sexuality is evenly distributed across all human niches? Where are all the straight actors and fashion designers hiding then?

  14. Societies tend to be either on or off regarding homo sex. That some ancient societies didn’t care is not evidence all didn’t.

    Suggesting bum sex to an Aztec warrior would have been a poor idea.

    But any argument “it’s OK, the ancients did it” is utterly flawed. They almost ubiquitous practiced slavery too. But, no, that ancient tradition is utterly wrong.

    So ancient practice is no guise to anything much.

  15. I don’t buy it. And I don’t buy that this was an Abrahamic religion thing. Religions don’t impose beliefs, they support what can be sold to the people. Like religious laws against fornication made sense before reliable contraception.

    You can include people like Stalin who re-introduced laws against homosexuality. The Nazis also persecuted homosexuals, but weren’t Christians.

    The significant question is why did the UK gradually stop caring about it from about the 1960s to the mid 90s after centuries of caring about it. I don’t believe that the period before was an accident. I don’t think that the rules of society exist for hundreds or thousands of years without them broadly working.

    My guess is that it’s about things like how much danger people live with, and that when you live in those societies homogenity really matters. Men forming strong fraternal relationships keeps you safe in a coal mine, or on a battle field. The guy next to you will risk his life to save yours. As these jobs declined in favour of largely non-dangerous jobs, attitudes changed. It’s telling that the Mafia doesn’t like homosexuals, though.

    Look at the commonwealth and there’s plenty of countries that became tolerant of homosexuality. We colonised Australia and NZ and they like the gays. Sierra Leone and Tanzania don’t. And what’s the divide? It’s mostly about industrialisation.

  16. just to add… and if people in our societies cared about homogenity in this way, why didn’t others?

  17. It’s strange that, when a Muslim man has sex with another, adult, male, he is either thrown off a tall building or used to test the lifting power of cranes. However, if the person being bummed is a male child, it’s a right of passage (no pun intended) for the child, and a cultural activity for the male, as so often claimed, as a defence, in British courts. Funny old religion, Islam.
    As for Daley, he’s nought but a child himself, with very little experience of life where Speedos are not worn, and thus ripe for brainwashing.

  18. BoM4 – Idk, seems complicated.

    We know from trick cyclists that dislike of homosexuality isn’t a phobia, it’s a disgust reflex. Conservatives in general tend to have heightened aversion to things they (perhaps subconsciously) associate with contamination. It’s not even a choice, it’s the way their wiring is laid out in the amygdala.

    Disgust is obviously a survival trait. Our Pleistocene instincts can, natch, serve us poorly but it’d be interesting to assess whether early 21st century Brits have a stronger or weaker survival instinct than their grandparents did, and what that might mean about Current Year mores.

  19. Steve,

    There’s definitely a thing about that, but women seem to want to watch lots of stuff involving gay men (sports, entertainment, reality TV), even though I would say that women are far more concerned with things like cleanliness than men are.

    But if the disgust reflex, why did things change? Something brought about a shift in attitudes, and I don’t think it’s just that TV got taken over by gays (which was largely a response to gays producing TV that women like).

  20. BonM4

    They didn’t really change, it is a feature of artistic activities that it attracts gays. It is just since bumming was legaliised they can come out into the open. The change is societal in that people have started to care less and less about sexual prefernces ( amongst adults ). It is evolutionary in that aspect and took from the mid 60s to the mid 80s to gain momentum.

    Women also like to mother gay men. They feel unthreatened and in many cases feel that they need protecting. Certainly I can point at my female relatives and seen a distinct softening in their attitudes over the last 40 years.

  21. So this fucking dwarf, who spent most of his schooldays jumping in water instead of actually studying, is now a history expert?

    Fuck off, and when you get there fuck off again, even further.

  22. Steve mentioning Gareth Thomas reminds me of a comment that I read when announced that he had HIV.

    It went along the lines of :

    “I really don’t get this congratulatingThomas on his bravery. If I went into the office and shouted that I had syphyllis, I don’t think that everybody would start high-fiving me.”

  23. Dennis, Inconveniently Noting Reality

    Tom Daley would be horrified (or, I assume he’d be horrified) to know just how offensive his comments would be Muslims living in (or outside) of the Commonwealth.

    Islam teaches that homosexuality is a mortal sin, and while lots of Christians have rationalized away (or just ignore) the more inconvenient mortal sins of Christianity, most Muslims haven’t. For them, homosexuality is, literally, a mortal sin. What Daley calls homophobia the Muslim would call adherence to the tenets of his faith.

    I’d love to see Daley call out Muslims for their “homophobia”, but we all know he never will. That wouldn’t be safe or politically correct. It’s easier to rack up Virtue Points by ragging on the locals who, by and large, aren’t homophobic, using approved leftist language and concepts.

  24. Dennis, Wandering To The Mosque

    It’s strange that, when a Muslim man has sex with another, adult, male, he is either thrown off a tall building or used to test the lifting power of cranes. However, if the person being bummed is a male child, it’s a right of passage (no pun intended) for the child, and a cultural activity for the male, as so often claimed, as a defence, in British courts. Funny old religion, Islam.

    The pederasty you refer to is culturally based, not religion based. Nor is it universal in Muslim dominated countries. That being said, the religious leaders of shitholes like Afghanistan, where the practice is endemic, have done nothing to curb/eliminate the practice, and that is – and will remain – a stain on the faith.

    It’s much like the current attitude in shitholes like Afghanistan towards widows and orphans. They are despised and aggressively discriminated against, whereas Muhammad ibn Abdullah was an orphan and married a widow (Khadija). If anything, the Quran repeatedly directs Muslims to treat widows and orphans with compassion and respect. This the Taliban (and others) ignore. So again, this is culturally based behavior, not religious. And again, it’s a stain on the faith.

  25. “So this fucking dwarf …”

    Or rather,

    “So this whingeing, sausage jockey, uphill gardener, fudge packer, fucking dwarf …”

    Oi, you can’t say “whingeing”!

  26. To paraphrase Romans – Leviticus: It is an abomonation if a man lies down with a another man as a man lies down with a woman. The second point is sometimes conveniently ignored by certain Christians (eg: family member) who want to memory hole the bits of their mental illness they consider inconvenient.

    I’m pretty certain this stuff pre-dates any sort of whitey colonialism but suits the agenda of those who hate whitey, so is given air time on Al Beeb.

    I wonder if they’ll be sending an alcoholic to Mecca to tell them they ought to accept alcohol into their society…..I won’t be holding my breath.

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