I saw a headline, on Google News that read “2 men caned 77 times for having sex in Indonesia’s Aceh”, and my first thought was, these men must have been caught having extramarital affairs. My second thought was, how unusual that Islamic fundamentalists punished men for sex sins instead of focusing all their self-righteous fury at the women.

I was curious, read the article, and it turns out that the men were brutalized for having sex with each other. In fundamentalist Islamic societies women are second-class citizens and gays and lesbians are considered sub-human.

Aceh is the only province in Indonesia that practices Shariah law, and neighbors reported them to Islamic religious police for having sex. Mind you, the men weren’t having sex in a public park, they were arrested after residents became suspicious and broke into their rented room where they were caught having sex.

In Aceh if you violate the privacy of your neighbor by breaking and entering into his home, the religious police won’t arrest you, instead they will arrest the victims, if they are gay men. You may be thinking, why should I worry about Muslim Indonesia, nothing like this will ever happen in our democracy. Don’t be so sure. The motley crew that attacked the Capitol included white supremacists, MAGA true believers, QAnon cultists and evangelical Christians, many of whom are Christian Nationalists. If they had their druthers, they would turn our democracy into a theocracy and jail gays and lesbians for the sin of expressing their love.