Caroline Lucas’ hypocrisy on women and gay rights
When she’s not busy betraying her own party, and kicking it while it is down, it seems that Green MP Caroline Lucas is busy displaying spectacular ill-judgment elsewhere as well. It hasn’t occurred to Lucas that attacking her own party at their lowest ebb not only displays a casual betrayal and lack of integrity, but in publicly agreeing that the Greens are not worth supporting, Lucas forgets that she herself is a Green; I don’t think she has thought this through, but then I don’t think she has thought many other things through either.
This week, I read a very interesting tweet from the journalist Julie Bindel. She wrote (among other things): “Caroline Lucas panders to extreme Islamists”. As someone who campaigns against Islamic extremism and the accompanying misogyny and brutal human rights abuses, this tweet very much caught my attention. Bindel did not expand on this, so I went looking for examples of Lucas pandering to Islamic extremism and I did not struggle to find them. Indeed, I found an article by Bindel herself, explaining why she believes Lucas to be so “overrated”. Some examples from the Bindel article:
On Yusuf Al-Qaradawi (a prominent member of the Muslim Brotherhood which recently refused to support a campaign opposing violence against women), Lucas is alleged to have stated: “Al-Qaradawi has been the victim of an Islamophobic smear campaign in some sections of the media, and has been associated with a fundamentalist position on a number of topics, including the treatment of homosexuals and women. Most of the criticisms levelled at him have been ill-informed.” I’m afraid not Caroline, Al-Qaradawi is known as an anti-Semitic, homophobic misogynist because that is what he is. The man who describes suicide bombings as “martyrdom operations” has also said “throughout history, Allah has imposed upon the (Jews) people who would punish them for their corruption. The last punishment was carried out by Hitler. By means of all the things he did to them – even though they exaggerated this issue – he managed to put them in their place. This was divine punishment for them. Allah willing, the next time will be at the hands of the believers”.
Yusuf Al-Qaradawi also supports female genital mutilation: “whoever finds it serving the interest of his daughters should do it, and I personally support this under the current circumstances in the modern world”. He is also somewhat vague about condemning domestic violence, which he describes as being not “obligatory nor desirable”. He thinks homosexuals should be punished with “the same punishment as any sexual pervert”. Yet he finds himself defended by Green MP Caroline Lucas, who once said that gay rights were the top of her agenda. Is that gay rights everywhere Caroline, or are you ok with the murder of gays by your beloved Islamists all over the world?
Given all of this, it is not surprising that Lucas is also a supporter, according to Bindel, of boycotts on Israel. Not only does this put Israeli workers on the dole (but to be fair, the Greens have never been much cop for the working classes), it also completely and totally ignores the horrific crimes of Hamas who are slowly but surely turning Gaza in to a nightmare to rival Saudi Arabia and Iran. Hamas recently banned women from taking part in a marathon, and some Palestinian women’s rights campaigners have said that women in Gaza no longer bother to go to the police if they are beaten by their husbands because domestic violence is a “right” according to Hamas, who are applying strict sharia law and turning life in to a living hell. The Hamas constitution describes homosexuality as “an abomination” and supports the death penalty. But you won’t hear about this from Lucas or her fellow travellers who no doubt find it far too uncomfortable to acknowledge that the world is not quite as simple as “Israel=bad, Palestine=good”.
Throughout my years of campaigning against religious misogyny, including Islamic, I have found the likes of Lucas depressingly common. They’re full of feminist credentials yet stand with those who enslave women. They’re full of concern for gay rights unless those gays happen to be an Islamic state – these gay people should accept their torture and murder: “it’s their culshure innit?”
In summary, I’ll quote Bindel: “Fundamentally, the problem with Lucas is her blatant hypocrisy. While purporting to hold the concepts of human rights and equality for all, she flirts with extremists and fundamentalists who, if they had their way, would destroy the bedrock of all Green policies and ensure that the likes of Lucas never saw the light of day.”
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