“A man should not be questioned why he hit his wife”

Written by

Ophelia Benson

in

Universities and student unions don’t generally invite Nazis to give talks, do they? Free inquiry is good, open discussion is good, but that isn’t necessarily taken to mean that it’s good to have proponents of genocide give talks to university students, is it?

I’m wondering why Islamist preachers with fascist leanings get invited to give talks at universities.

A controversial preacher who described homosexuality as a “scourge” has been invited to speak at a London university the day before a national gay pride event takes place there.

More than 500 people have signed a petition against allowing Haitham al-Haddad to speak at the University of Westminster’s Islamic Society event on Thursday.

Dr al-Haddad has called homosexuality a “criminal act”, as well as saying there is a “proper” way of performing FGM. He has also argued that the authorities should not become involved in domestic disputes, saying: “A man should not be questioned why he hit his wife, because this is something between them.”

The trouble is, many people take that kind of thing literally and as authoritative and binding. A man is free to hit “his wife” because it’s something between them. That’s not abstract or general; it’s very concrete and very particular. The more male preachers say things like that, the more women will be hit.

A spokesman for Student Pride said: “Considering Westminster is a Stonewall Diversity Champion and is such an advocate of our event it is disappointing that on the eve of our tenth anniversary such an anti-gay speaker has been allowed to speak on campus.

“Homosexuality is not a scourge, and Student Pride has been fighting views like this from its foundation, it’s clear and unfortunate news that there is clearly much work to do.”

Open inquiry is good, but another thing that’s good is progress in including all people under the umbrella of equal rights. These can be competing goods. I think the second should trump the first when the list of speakers is being drawn up.

H/t Chris Moos

More posts