In den meisten muslimischen Länder kennt man bei Homosexualität keine Gnade. In Saudi-Arabien etwa drohen lebenslange Haft, Peitschenhiebe oder auch die Todesstrafe. Manchmal reicht dort der bloße Verdacht, um inhaftiert zu werden. Zuletzt wurde der Fernsehproduzent Abdulaziz Almuzaini zu 13 Jahren Haft verurteilt, weil er angeblich „Werbung für Homosexualität“ gemacht habe.
Der Queer-Beauftragte Berlins, Alfonso Pantisano (SPD), scheint das alles nicht zu wissen. Anders ist nicht zu erklären, dass er mit einem Foto von sich mit arabischer Kopfbedeckung gegen die angebliche Vorverurteilung der muslimischen Kultur als homophob protestiert. Im „Spiegel“ hatte sich zuvor der SPD-Generalsekretär Kevin Kühnert zu schwulenfeindlichen Muslimen in Berlin geäußert.
“The classic drivers of homophobia include strict conservative role models and religious fundamentalism,” said Kühnert in the interview and continued: “In addition, aggressive homophobia has a clearly male face. And so, in my experience, homophobic remarks come out of Muslim men’s groups more often than you would otherwise experience on the street. Of course the majority of Muslims in my constituency are not homophobic. But those who are are restricting my freedom and have no right to it. And I will not remain silent about this for tactical reasons.”
Model appearance in the Arab world
That’s exactly what Pantisano would have obviously wanted. In a Facebook post on Saturday, he wrote, “Dear Kevin, really now? We don’t want to trivialize anything here, because the danger posed by queer hostility is more than real for our community. But while you claim here that a large part of the Muslim community is not “anti-gay”, you are creating exactly this horrendous image.” Queer hostility, Pantisano continued, exists among people of all origins and with all languages, skin colors and religions.
“But why we always single out Muslims as a singular phenomenon remains a mystery to me.” He later wrote of “anti-Muslim racism.” If there is hostility on the street, you cannot tell whether someone is Muslim. To prove this, Pantisano posted a photo of himself, which he said showed him wearing a keffiyeh (also called a Palestinian scarf) in an advertising campaign in the Arab world in 2007, in which he appeared as a model. In the campaigns he was seen as an Arab, even though he came from Italy and was German.
The “Tagesspiegel” reported criticism also within the SPD about the photo shortly before the anniversary of the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel. The Berlin CDU General Secretary Ottilie Klein wrote on the Internet platform
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