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Tuesday 2 September 2008

Moaning Muslims: Part 963

We all have to dance around Muslim festivals now, it seems. In Bosnia, these bleating religion-soaked idiots are knocking the gay community for having the audacity to hold an LGB event during Ramadan, which has just begun.

Quite apart from the sheer impudence of these people in expecting another group even to consider moving its event at all, they conveniently forget that bloody Ramadan is a movable feast. These prats expect everyone else to arrange their events so as not to coincide with it if Muslims choose to be offended by whatever it is. Which could mean that several different organisations per year could find themselves rearranging their calendars if their activities don't fit in with moaning Muslims' ideas of what is right and proper, whether Ramadan falls in September, December or whenever.

"Queer Sarajevo Festival is to take place in from September 24th to 27th," Pink News tells us. "The Dutch, Canadian and Swiss embassies are among those supporting the event."

The online gay news source goes on to quote Amir Zukic of the Muslim Party of Democratic Action as having told a newspaper, "We respect freedom and tolerance, but the festival is a kind of provocation since it is taking place during Ramadan."

So how is it any more of a provocation for coinciding with one of your cultural events, then, Mr Zukic? If you don't like the coincidence of these events, move your damned festival to somewhere else in the calendar. You're the ones who have chosen to be offended. Who the hell do you think you are?

"We've been preparing the project for the past year and I would not spend my time only to provoke someone," Svetlana Djurkovic, head of the gay and lesbian rights group Association Q, is quoted as saying. "It is a festival of culture and art."

Recent figures indicate that 40 per cent of the population of Bosnia and Herzegovina are Muslims, 31% are Orthodox Christians and 15% are Roman Catholics. Which means that it is a Muslim majority country. It is also a potential candidate country for EU membership and, if admitted, it would be the first majority Muslim country in the Union. Gawd 'elp us!

There is an equal age of consent but the EU says discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation is "widespread". It's perhaps no surprse that there are no gay bars in Bosnia's capital Sarajevo.

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