This column by Ryan Mauro originally appeared at the Clarion Project:
The stage was set for the types of attacks we saw in Orlando a long time before the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) showed up. Gays, just like Jews, are commonly scapegoated as vile, sin-bearing creatures whose mere presence decays societies.
The stigmatizing of homosexuals inevitably leads to mistreatment and violence towards them, and we should not make the mistake of assuming this problem begins and ends with ISIS.
Here are five ways that Islamists created the conditions for the Orlando attacks to happen even before ISIS was born:
1. Supporting the Execution of Gays by Sharia Authorities
All of the significant Muslim organizations in the West will condemn the attacks in Orlando, but it is simply not enough. Mainstream Islamic texts and preachers may not call for individuals to execute and punish suspected gays, but they dosupport having an Islamic state based on sharia doing it. Their issue isn’t with killing gays; it’s with who gets to kill gays.
If you believe that a sharia-based government should execute gays, then it doesn’t take much for you to harm gays. All you need is an excuse to match that instilled hatred with action. At the very least, if you are convinced violent jihad is permissible, you’ll make them one of your top targets.
This viral video has footage of a visiting imam speaking at the Husseini Islamic Center in Sanford, Florida arguing that it is “compassionate” to execute homosexuals, saying, “Let’s get rid of them now.”
Another example is Muzammil Siddiqi, the chairman of the executive council of the Fiqh Council of North America, which is a section ofthe Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), a U.S. Muslim Brotherhood entity as identified by the Justice Department. ISNA is the Obama Administration’s top Muslim outreach partner.
Siddiqi said in 2001 that he opposes attacking homosexuals but supports sharia states that execute them. He said it is impossible to be Muslim and gay, which means that any gay person identifying as a Muslim is an apostate. That is a death sentence according to the topsharia authorities.