There is the Islam of rhetoric....and then there is the Islam of reality.
I'm in Afghanistan, and I have a unique “view” into everyday life here.
Homosexual activity is not uncommon and really not hidden.
Afghan men can be seen holding hands and flirting with one another rather frequently.
There is a customary embrace greeting, and then there is quite a different embrace given that can't be taken for anything else than what it appears.
Islam is a very pagan religion.
In the 90’s, I went to Montreal for training and there was an Iranian software engineer from California sitting next to me.
I had read that though Islam is the glue that binds, most Iranian villages still worship there ancient gods. As it is in most of the Islamic world.
So, I asked him about that and he said: “Yes”.
These pagan roots have always included homosexuality as normal, even pedophilia.....not to mention bestiality.
Mystery Babylon is alive and well in Islam.
Interesting! Dan Savage might enjoy hanging out there. ...Stories of pedophilia and bestiality in the world of Islam are plentiful. ...I knew about strange pagan and black magic practices among some of the Kurdish tribes, but wasn’t aware that Muslims would be willing to discuss the existence of other gods besides Allah. Allat was killed off long ago by Mohammad. Of course it would be difficult to remove Allah from the whole of paganism, no matter how much Judaism and Christianity were plagiarized. I’ve read some convincing arguments that linguistically Allah is derived from Enlil. In a convoluted way, that brings Enlil back to the prominence he enjoyed before the days of Nimrod. Indeed Mystery Babylon is alive and well. Thanks for the insight.