This post is an expansion on a comment I posted earlier defending my preferred 2020 candidate, Tulsi Gabbard, from the “Islamophobe” charge. As we on the American Left lick our wounds and rebuild from this catastrophic election, I believe an urgent task is to address this pervasive intellectual blind spot by which we cast aside the same standards we use to rightly criticize the Christian right when the topic turns to the Islamic right. Instead, we too often reflexively dismiss critiques of Islamic theology and conservative practices from a secular liberal perspective as anti-Muslim bigotry. In the process, we throw our liberal allies in the Muslim world under the bus (including atheists, secularists, LGBT, feminists, religious minorities, etc...) and dilute our fight in the West against the very real problem of actual anti-Muslim bigotry.
It is not bigotry to point out the obvious fact that while all religions have a problem with theocratic factions that unfortunately have a plausible basis on their foundational texts, in the 21st century Islam currently has a significantly bigger and more violent such problem than other religions. It is also not bigotry to point out, as Tulsi does, that Shi'ite violent theocratic movements inspired and backed by Iran have a theological basis and theological grievances, while Sunni violent theocratic movements inspired and backed by Saudi Arabia have a theological basis and theological grievances. Finally, it is also not bigotry to criticize even non-violent strains of Islamic ultra-conservatism and theocracy, in the exact same way we criticize the Christian theocracy peddled by the likes of Mike Pence. Tulsi makes a passionate case for secular society and secular government as the only path for religious freedom to all, if that’s not liberal, I don’t know what is.
I myself am a Jewish atheist, and as most of you likely have already guessed, am firmly in the Sam Harris/Bill Maher/Christopher Hitchens (his unfortunate support for the Iraq War notwithstanding, but that’s a topic for a different diary)/Richard Dawkins/Lawrence Krauss camp on the topic of religion. It is not anti-Semitic for me to affirm that the ultra-orthodox Jew who went on a stabbing spree at the Jerusalem gay pride parade a couple of years ago was acting in accordance with a very plausible interpretation of the Torah and to reject the idea that his actions “had nothing to do with Judaism". It is also not anti-Semitic for me to recognize that the settler movement in the West Bank has everything to do with plausible interpretations of Jewish scripture.
We on the Left have the better argument than the Right on confronting theocratic Islam: we reject theocracy, period, in all of its forms, and call for a secular state with complete freedom of speech (including the right to blaspheme) and equality under the law for all, with no Indiana/Hobby Lobby-style religious exemptions available. We squander that argument when we shy away from confronting certain types of religious conservatism.
I hope to contribute to stimulating a very needed discussion.