Indonesia Mulls Novel Legal Consequence for Being Gay: Exorcism!
Forget spinning heads and spouts of vomited green bile: In Indonesia, it soon might be a matter of law that just being LGBTQ will mandate an exorcism.
In most of that Muslim majority country, it's not currently illegal to be gay or trans, notes Barron's, even though the country's rightward drift has meant increasing demonization of sexual minorities.
But a bill now under consideration could change that — and if the punishment seems bizarre, it's an outgrowth of Indonesia's longstanding use of incantations to clear evil spirits, a catchall solution that Barron's noted has "long been used for everything from tackling mental illness to clearing villages of alleged apparitions."
Barron's also noted that:
...it is still widely believed that being gay or transgender is the result of a person being possessed by evil spirits — and that these can be expelled by religious ceremony and prayer.
The country's views on the power of faith to magically transform gay people into straight ones is not unlike the claims that so-called "conversion therapy" has been known to make about prayer "curing" LGBTQs — even though reputable mental health professions note that being gay is not a pathological condition, and does not need a "cure."
And like so-called "conversion therapy," exorcism, according to those who have endured it, does nothing to change either sexuality or gender identity. The only change it does effect, according to those who have spoken out, is to leave those upon whom it was inflicted with traumatic memories.
As Global Citizen quoted one Indonesian transwoman as saying, "Nothing changed after the exorcism. I'm still LGBT, but my family didn't give up easily."
Added the 31-year-old survivor, "It's traumatizing — the horror of that memory stays in my head."
Another survivor of the anti-gay exorcism told USA Today he thought being "cured" would make life easier in a country where religious, familial, and social disapproval make being LGBTQ hard.
"I still believed that if I am Muslim, I can't be gay.
"Because I had studied at an Islamic school about six years and studied at an Islamic university. So it affected my thoughts."
But the exorcism did nothing to affect his authentic self, the young man added.
"I am still gay. For me, the hardest part was not during the ruqyah [exorcism ritual], but after it, when I had to keep pushing myself to be straight. It was frustrating and made me depressed."
That is exactly what mental heath professionals warn about the so-called "conversion therapy" industry, which is often promoted and provided by religious groups: The process promises a deeply fundamental change to vulnerable people who have been made to feel desperate about not being straight, and then doesn't deliver. The aftermath can be fraught with depression, anguish, and even suicide.
As Indonesia has shifted to the political right, the predictable patterns have emerged — including political hate rhetoric targeting sexual minorities.
Also predictably, there are those standing by who are ready and willing to make a profit off the cultural climate. As Human Rights Watch's Andreas Harsono told USA Today:
"...with the spread of this belief that homosexuality is a disease, of course, there is a rise among traditional 'medical' practitioners who perform ruqyah. In every city, you open Facebook, you open local advertisements, you will see someone performing ruqyah services, of course, for money."
Harsonoi then shared a personal story about witnessing the horrific toll that such rhetoric — and such quack views about human sexuality and gender identity — can take:
"I once met a gay man who was shackled because he himself, and his family, believed he was possessed by a gay spirit."