Conservatives still making left-liberal arguments against Islam

Ben W. sent this on October 2, which I missed:

Yesterday I mentioned two “conservative” writers (Coulter and Steyn) who brought up the issue of homosexuality in Iran. Thanks to the Columbia U. comment by Johnnie that Iran doesn’t have any gays, here we go again—Robert Spencer has an entire article at FrontPage labeling Iran’s treatment of gays as “bigotry.”

I could have brought up a dozen other “conservative” commentators this past week who have either focused on or mentioned the issue of gays in Iran. Last year, the obsession was with Islam’s treatment of women. This year it is Islam’s treatment of gays. By conservatives, not liberals.

It is as if the conservative feels obliged to comment to the liberal about Islam by using the liberal’s own criteria for measuring freedom.

What if someone were to say that Iran’s treatment of gays is not “bigotry”—it is simply justice according to Islam’s principles? After all this is what governs Iran.

Conservatives boast that they are the ones who are making this an issue when it should be the liberals doing so; thus the conservatives ostensibly “show up” the liberals’ hypocrisy vis-a-vis Islam. But this is a self-defeating proposition because it confirms that it is the liberal who “owns” the tools conservatives have to use with which to measure liberty.

For the record I have no problem with the Old Testament view of homosexuality.

LA replies:

When I wrote some time ago that Robert Spencer uses liberal arguments to defend the West while I use conservative arguments (and I didn’t say it as a criticism, I was describing us as allies) he said that this was a “calumny” on him.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at November 05, 2007 11:24 AM | Send