The far right paint Muslims as the enemy of the LGBT+ community – but they are the real danger

The best of Voices delivered to your inbox every week - from controversial columns to expert analysis Sign up for our free weekly Voices newsletter for expert opinion and columns Sign up to our free weekly Voices newsletter SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Geert Wilders, the Dutch leader of the Party for Freedoms, proclaimed that: “We believe that like Christians and Jews and women and journalists, gay people are also one of the first to pay the price of Islamisation.” France’s Marine Le Pen has notably decided to portray herself as a symbol of feminist emancipation – but largely on issues involving Islam. Both Wilders and Le Pen have also cosied up with Italy’s Matteo Salvini, who will soon be attending a “traditional family”-promoting event in Verona organised by a designated hate group, and whose Northern League members in Calabria recently sent out pamphlets saying women’s “natural role” was as child-bearing homemakers and attacking those supporting their “self-determination”. Right-wing parties have been far more instrumental in hindering the advancement of LGBT+ and women’s rights in Europe than Muslim communities have, yet whenever stories of intolerance prop up with Muslims at the centre – such as the Parkfield school controversy over an LGBT-inclusive curriculum – far-right pundits and politicians launch their offensive, pointing out the Islamic “threat” to Western liberal values. Another classic ruse of the far-right is to claim Islam’s supposed “inherent oppressiveness” by comparing Christian European democracies with Middle Eastern theocracies and regimes.