• Tortellinius@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    How is this the fault of Europeans? Not saying colonialism didn’t cause an endless list of problems, but the same European countries are in the global minority of having legalized same-sex marriage nowadays lol. None of this is meant to diminish the persecution of homosexuals that happened in the European past. It very much existed, but there’s plenty of evidence of it existing outside of Europe as well.

    It’s not at all about the religion.

    • Blubber28@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      If a country where many people follow a book that says homosexuals should be stoned to death are abusing homosexuals I think it is naive to dismiss the connection.

      And yes, Europe nowadays is quite tolerant, and I am very thankful to live there myself as a queer man, but it was a very different story in many countries only 100 years ago.

      • Tortellinius@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        I am not dismissing the connection, I just wonder what it’s based upon. Sure, you could assume as such, but starting to talk about the bible will be a conversation that turns in on itself. The largest church i. e., the Catholic church, emphasizes its own existence before the Bible itself, highlighting the church over the scripture in religious matters. And there definitely are several denominations that fully integrate homosexuality (see some Old Catholic churches for example), albeit still in minority but growing. Not that I’m defending anything else about it. I’m not a Christian. But to fully illustrate my point it doesn’t take a long google search to find out that homosexuality can also be blamed as an European import. However, Europeans historically definitely did have a more binary world-view on gender, and there is evidence it impacted colonized countries (British more so than others).

        However, does any of this really matter? I am saying that I believe simply blaming today’s homophobia on historical exploitation, which definitely had an socio-economic impact, is not gonna fix what is definitely a problem nowadays. Actually, blaming European colonization for crimes committed by people in Nigeria is taking away from their own responsiblity and agency to improve the issue. Whether religious or not, both LGTBQ+ right nor religious freedom should infringe on one another.

        But there are many crimes colonizing countries should pay for until this day. Hope you don’t feel like I’m trying to argue against you, I just wanna have a interesting conversation!

    • doben@lemmy.wtf
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      1 day ago

      Europeans generated their wealth by robbing it from the colonies, by subjugating the local indiginous population, forcing their religion on them, destroying their culture, enslaving them to extract ressources. But they didn‘t bother to bring any of their achievements for the locals to enjoy, just extraction, sucking them dry under brute force.

      Apart from that, progressive policies such as same-sex marriage didn‘t just come into fruition, because Europeans are such a cool bunch, this kind of progress had to be fought for by the minorities themselves. And it will be taken away again the further capitalism falls into it’s natural crisis named fascism; see trans rights / DEI in the US or just have a look at far right talking points surging in Europe also.

      Every-fucking-thing is the fault of Europeans. You really don‘t have to take it personally, tho. You as an individual are not at fault. But the level of your own ignorance lies in your own hands.

      The point is, comparing European cultural progress with that of their plundered colonies is one of the most disingeniuous and chauvinist things you can do. Don‘t be that guy.