HRW: “Islam is evil” is just one of many anti-Muslim slurs uttered by retired Lt. Gen. William “Jerry” Boykin, executive vice-president of the Washington-based Family Research Council (FRC) and former undersecretary of defense for intelligence under US President George W. Bush.
So one might assume that Malaysia, a predominantly Muslim country, would keep its distance from the likes of Boykin and the FRC. Think again – whatever reservations the Malaysian government might harbor about Boykin’s anti-Muslim views appear to have been set aside in a common, irrational fear of homosexuality.
Last week, the Department of Islamic Development Malaysia (JAKIM), a government agency in the Prime Minister’s Office formed to protect the “purity of faith and the teaching of Islam” distributed a pamphlet with text adapted directly from an FRC pamphlet entitled “10 Myths about Homosexuality.” The pamphlet suggests that homosexuals are not disadvantaged by discrimination and are mentally ill.
The FRC is well known in the United States for distorting research, using discredited research, and relying on junk science. The Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center designated FRC a hate group for knowingly spreading demeaning and false propaganda against the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community.
Given the blatantly anti-Islam bias of the FRC, it was particularly surprising to see Rafidah Hanim Mokhtar, the deputy dean (academic and research) of Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia (Usim) medicine and health science faculty, stepping in to defend the pamphlets.
Categories: Anti Islam act by Muslims, Asia, Bigotry, Malaysia