re: #321 stabby

From their statement. The the reasons they can not attend the ceremony included this point:

“2. It includes the controversial question of alleged Armenian genocide as well as the so-called gay genocide. “

The “gay genocide” probably being the one in WWII.

Probably? You’re arguing without having looked?

OK, a touch of history. In 2000 the UK had a less formal holocaust memorial day. The Armenian population objected. Maybe you were around and politically aware then, maybe you weren’t, but this got kind of big and nasty. It wasn’t resolved in 2001. The Turks and a lot of others were arguing it wasn’t a genocide - and in fact that the MBF was involved because the Armenians had been equally bloody toward Turks. If you go far enough back that’s true. Further there were various official documents (from both sides, again) that indicated the number of deaths was significantly smaller than any genocidal level. These are reasons the original plan was to have a hard cut-off date for genocides to be officially recognized. Because of the furor from Armenians recalling 2000, however, this was revisited and no ‘official’ cut-off was made. In practice what happened is that the ‘most recent’ genocide was considered - only tit, no tat.

For various reasons of give and take, then, the 2001 HMD’s theme wasn’t merely the holocaust, but genocides as a whole.

The MCB at that time disagreed. Both because of the official documents and the ‘only the most recent’ principle. Hate? not particularly. More a case of support of their allies.

Add to the mix the gay pride issues going on at the time. In addition to the holocaust the homosexuals were raising the allegation of their slaughter in numerous places around the globe. They hinged their claim on the holocaust but claimed much more. As it turned out their accuracy beyond WWII was mixed.

This gave a hook to the devout Muslims AND CHRISTIANS of the time who found themselves conflicted about respecting gays in the holocaust memorial service. The gays were making claims of genocide in addition, and for this reason “so-called” could be added to the discussion. It was, and is, a form of hatred.

But in no way was it ‘support of the Nazi’s slaughter of gays’. That is a significant misstatement driven by your apparent bigotry.