It is almost two months since Omar Mateen walked around the Pulse nightclub in Florida, gunning people down while shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’. During the assault Mateen spoke to American law enforcement and swore allegiance to Isis. Frustratingly Omar Mateen failed to call the group ‘so-called Islamic State’, thus betraying a woeful lack of linguistic sensitivity among his other crimes.

A few days later, very much in the shadow of these events, there was a ‘gay pride’ parade in New York. The huge banner leading the parade at the front read ‘Republican hate kills’. That is because after a moment’s stunned surprise the American gay rights movement did what all other Western gay rights movements have done, and decided to assiduously duck the issue of Islamic homophobia. Having spent so many years believing that there was nothing more hateful than a Republican, when someone shouting praise to Allah and swearing allegiance to Islamic State killed 49 gay people America’s gay movement didn’t even bother to commission a new rainbow banner.

As I wrote at the time, although the Western gay press has understandable historical qualms about Christianity it also has a history of dismissing any and all concerns about Islam. So in the wake of Orlando the gay press was filled not with pieces warning gay people about Islamic gay-hate, but pieces going out of their way to warn people against linking the massacre to Islam or Muslims. In particular there was a flurry of articles warning gay people not to become ‘haters’. Which is only the gay version of a wider Western sickness. You got attacked? Be careful you don’t become a bigot now.

At the weekend I picked up a copy of the UK gay magazine Attitude – a sort of post-Orlando memorial edition – which showed nothing had changed. The aim of the edition was not just to avoid treading on any sore Islamic toes, but to deliberately avoid the subject of Islam. Well these people, as Martin Amis once said in a related context, are disappearing up the fundament of the people who want to kill them. They should enjoy it while it lasts. The fact that a majority of British Muslims want being gay in Britain to be made illegal strikes me as a salient and troubling fact even if I can’t seem to get anyone else interested in the point.

Still, perhaps I can recommend some reading material to the gay panjandrums and their straight ‘allies’? This recommendation is probably not on their usual reading list, but it is the latest issue of the Isis publication ‘Dabiq’ (if you wish to insert your own ‘so-calleds’ into that sentence then please do so). Although the cover of this latest issue of the magazine is dedicated to the issue of ‘Breaking the cross’ (the Isis belief that Christianity must be destroyed) gays who do not care about this are welcome to flick beyond the cover story. On page 30 they will find a most illuminating piece about the Orlando nightclub massacre. It is far more informative than anything that can be found in Gay Times, the Advocate, or Attitude. It is called ‘Why we hate you and why we fight you.’ The reasons are clearly laid out.

Reason one is because the West is full of ‘disbelievers’ who ‘reject the oneness of Allah’. Reason two is because ‘your secular, liberal societies permit the very things that Allah has prohibited'. Reason three is that ‘in the case of the atheist fringe, we hate you and wage war against you because you disbelieve in the existence of your Lord and creator’. And so on and so on. If you have got this far then you are probably worried, like me, by the lack of editorial talent in the Isis camp (or the ‘so-called Isis, so-called camp’). But go back a step and you will find something even more worrying. Read again in a little more detail point two – the one about permitting things that ‘Allah’ has forbidden. I quote the full paragraph:

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‘We hate you because your secular, liberal societies permit the very things that Allah has prohibited while banning many of the things He has permitted, a matter that doesn’t concern you because you separate between religion and state, thereby granting supreme authority to your whims and desires via the legislators you vote into power. In doing so, you desire to rob Allah of his right to be obeyed and you wish to usurp that right for yourselves. “Legislation is not but for Allah” (Yusuf 40). Your secular liberalism has led you to tolerate and even support “gay rights”, to allow alcohol, drugs, fornication, gambling, and usury to become widespread, and to encourage the people to mock those who denounce these filthy sins and vices. As such, we wage war against you to stop you from spreading your disbelief and debauchery – your secularism and nationalism, your perverted liberal values, your Christianity and atheism – and all the depravity and corruption they entail. You’ve made it your mission to “liberate” Muslim societies; we’ve made it our mission to fight off your influence and protect mankind from your misguided concepts and your deviant way of life.’

Interesting, isn’t it? So while the gay press in the UK is trying to make the Orlando massacre about ‘toxic masculinity’ or ‘Islamophobia’ and the US gay rights movement is trying to make it about Marco Rubio, Isis are saying precisely why they want people to attack the West. One of the reasons they want to attack the West is because of the gays. Of course there might be some conservatives in America and Britain who respond to such things by saying, ‘crikey – perhaps we ought to clean up our act and go easy on all the perversion, drinking, gambling and gay clubbing’. But most people – any self-respecting people – will turn around and say ‘screw you’.

I’m not a betting man, but because Isis are so opposed to gambling I’m willing to start. So in that spirit I would like to take bets: how much longer do people think that gay ‘community leaders’ can keep this denial up for?