While we’re always pointing out the insanity of Western religion, let us not forget Islam. This video is the Islamic equivalent of snake-handling: though it doesn’t endanger the speaker, it endangers other Muslims. Yasser Al-Habib is a Shi’ite Muslim cleric living in London; he has a checkered history and fled Kuwait to avoid imprisonment. He now spouts his vicious nonsense on British television. Please take five minutes to watch this and remind yourself of the poison of religion.

You might think this is funny, and the biology is completely insane (about two minutes in he implicates an “anal disease” that produces a sense of unease calmed only by semen); but remember that, as Wikipedia notes, “acccording to the International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA) seven [majority-Muslim] countries still retain capital punishment for homosexual behavior: Afghanistan, Iran, Mauritania, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Yemen.” In other Muslim countries it’s illegal and punishable by up to life in prison. (I have some doubts about the punishment in Pakistan). Now homosexuality is illegal as well in some non-Muslim countries (e.g., Belize, Trinidad and Tobago), and I doubt that government executions for homosexuality are common anywhere, but there’s little doubt that religiously based bigotry, as spouted by this cleric, inflames the severe anti-gay bias of many Muslims.

It also behooves us to remember the internecine hatreds within Islam. Here Al-Habib claims that the Shi’ites are protected by Allah from passive homosexuality, but Sunni Muslims can be turned into homosexuals or (if female) “whores” when an infant is penetrated by the finger of the Devil.

Remember that this was broadcast by a cleric living in the UK on a UK television station (Fadak TV., headquartered in London) a bit over two weeks ago.

h/t: Malgorzata