Monday, August 17, 2015

Today on The Michelangelo Signorile Show on SiriusXM PROGRESS ch.127

Most have us seen or heard about the horrible videos depicting Islamic State militants throwing allegedly gay men off the roofs of building or edges of cliffs as a punishment for the perceived crime of being homosexual.  While the monsters that commit these crimes claim that religion commands them to do so, and right-wing pundits and politicians have seized on this to further demonize all Muslims and to use it as a reason that LGBT people in the US shouldn’t fight for their own civil rights, because hey at least we don’t do that here and that should be good enough.  However according to Mustafa Akyol a Turkish journalist, author, and contributing opinion writer for The International New York Times what Islam has said about homosexuality historically is a lot more nuanced and open for interpretation.  Mustafa joins me today from Turkey to talk all about what Islam says about being Gay.

On Saturday night, Julian Bond, a lifelong champion of equal rights and pivotal figure of the 1960s civil rights movement and chairman of the N.A.A.C.P., died at the age of 75.  Mr. Bond was one of the original leaders of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee while he was a student at Morehouse College in Atlanta. He was the committee’s communications director for five years and deftly guided the national news media toward stories of violence and discrimination as the committee challenged legal segregation in the South’s public facilities, and eventually moved to the leadership of the N.A.A.C.P.  Mr. Bond was a writer, poet, television commentator, lecturer and college teacher, and persistent opponent of the stubborn remnants of white supremacy.  He also served for 20 years in the Georgia General Assembly, mostly in conspicuous isolation from white colleagues who saw him as an interloper and a rabble-rouser.  Joining me today to talk all about the life and legacy of Julian Bond is Mark Thompson the host of Make It Plain, which airs Mondays through Fridays on SiriusXM Progress 127, 6-9 p.m. ET.

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