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Editorial: Stop provoking stigma
As a nation based on Pancasila including faith in one God, there is no place for sinful sexual deviants
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s a nation based on Pancasila including faith in one God, there is no place for sinful sexual deviants. This is the message we have been hearing since a gay counseling service at the University of Indonesia was banned last month.
Panic is spreading about a 'movement' that seeks to convert heterosexual youth among those with apparently little exposure to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people. Such anxiety has always been endorsed by religious figures. But we are now most alarmed by the stigma of LGBT citizens that has been endorsed by ministers and even the Indonesian Broadcasting Commission (KPI). After meeting with the Indonesian Child Protection Commission (KPAI), the KPI said it had banned 'promotion' of 'LGBT lifestyle' and activities from television programs. However, Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Luhut Pandjaitan has asserted that LGBT people are citizens with equal rights.
Although President Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo campaigned on ensuring 'the state's presence', the state is increasingly provoking stigma and discrimination against minorities. In January authorities swiftly facilitated the eviction of members of Fajar Nusantara Movement (Gafatar), alleged to be a deviant faith group. Then the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) issued a fatwa proclaiming them as heretic; another edict on LGBT people is also expected.
Official rejection and formal restriction of LGBT activities is a dangerous signal of even wider state embrace of moral and religious-related demands. Hundreds of bylaws regulate behavior and morality, as well as restrict minorities. Church and state is a lethal mix. At this rate we'll soon be back to burning witches; three Ahmadiyah minority members were killed in Banten in February 2011.
Jokowi's silence about such divisive issues is increasingly endangering minorities, who are being kicked out of their homes here and there. Such events occurred during the 10 years under then president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, but Jokowi was entrusted to make a difference.
Proponents of curbing LGBT activities or people insist they are all for protecting citizens' rights and advocate efforts to 'guide' LGBT people away from 'deviance' ' despite grossly lacking evidence about 'cured' sexual orientation. Haedar Nashir, leader of Indonesia's second-largest Islamic organization, Muhammadiyah, has warned that no one should subject LGBT people to violence.
Yet those who bully for whatever reason continue to find further justification to intimidate any 'deviant' minority. Without strong state defense of minorities, many would nod to the other part of Haedar's statement ' that 'human rights are not universal', but depend on the context of a nation, despite the Constitution's incorporation of UN human rights conventions.
President Jokowi must remind the nation that Pancasila means equal treatment of minorities and restoring the rights of the hundreds displaced for having different beliefs. It means ensuring global, non-derogable rights including that of minorities to live in peace. Indonesia's foundation cannot be sacrificed by 'contextualizing' human rights.
And if 'belief in one God' means kicking out sexual minorities, Indonesia will be on par with Hitler's Nazi regime, which crushed perceived moral decadence and 'impurity'.
