At a national conference in Kuala Lumpur, leaders of Malaysia’s ruling political party continued to lash out at the LGBT community, demanding that punishment against homosexuality be “strict.”
Representatives of the United Malays National Organization (UMNO), which predates the country’s independence in 1957, claimed same-sex attraction threatened the country’s Islamic values and was “of the Devil.”
One delegate called for camps to “re-educate” gays and lesbians.
“We want to transform them from zaman kejahilan [dark age of ignorance],” Tanjong representative Mohd Shaharudin Mohd Hasan Tajudin told the over 2,000 delegates at Umno’s cavernous Putra World Trade Center (PWTC).
Shaharudin also suggested that high school students be taught to reject the LGBT lifestyle—along with pluralism and liberalism—in their religious education.
This is just the latest in an ongoing campaign against Malaysia’s LGBT community, as Islamist elements gain more power: In September, the government approved of a handbook that warned parents against telltale signs of homosexuality in their children.
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In the spring, Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin banned LGBT characters from Malay TV and allocated more than $32,000 toward conversion therapy.
And just last week, it was reported that Prime Minister Najib Razak objected to LGBT protections in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’s human-rights charter. His office warned against condoning “twisted practices” simply because they were approved of in the West.
Even pop icon Elton John got caught up in crosshairs when he performed at a resort Kuala Lumpur last week. Nasrudin Hassan Tantawi of the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS) demanded the concert be canceled, saying “artists who are involved in gay and lesbian activities must not be allowed to perform in Malaysia as they will promote the wrong values.”
You know, like all those good values heterosexual pop stars promote.
Tracy
“We have to understand: barbarians need to be educated. They need to be disciplined. Just because someone feels it or thinks it doesn’t mean that we are supposed to go down that road. That’s what is called the sinful nature. We have a responsibility as parents and as authority figures not to encourage such thoughts and feelings from moving into the action steps…”
— Marcus Bachmann
James
I lived in Malaysia, very racist country.
Daniel-Reader
So if Malaysia is going to violate the human rights of millions of people and force religion onto others in violation of the freedom of/from religion, does it expect the rest of the world to preserve the existence of Malaysia? Governments made of politicians and religious leaders make a thousand excuses for why they violate other people’s human rights – and not a single explanation of why their own should be sacrosanct when they harm millions of others. Perhaps the millions of people experiencing human rights violations on Earth right now should get together and vote on the fate of politicians and religious leaders who violate the human rights of millions of people.