Corporate Media Pushes Sympathy Narrative about Two Gay Men in … Indonesia? Why?

The South China Morning Post reported about the brutal punishment of two men who were caught abusing each other's bodies in the Aceh Province of Indonesia.

The massive Island archipelago nation is the largest Muslim country in the world based on population. The vast majority of cities and regions do not explicitly ban homosexual conduct.

However, the Aceh Province does enforce Sharia law. The government will punish people with public caning if they drink alcohol, if women go out with another man who is not the woman's husband or male relative.

And yes, they punish men who engage in sodomy.

One can certainly wince at the excessive punishment imposed on these two indivduals. Natural law and natural rights must respect the well-being of every individual. 80 lashes is an outrageous consequence for anything.

However, this is an incident in a faraway province in a Southeast Asian country. Why is the Agence-Press France writing about this? Why is the South China Morning Post printing this story?

This is all about pushing a world-wide sympathy narrative for "homosexuals" and for homosexuality, as though the only reason these two indivduals are being so cruelly punished is for … being who they are.

Notice the sympathy narrative being pushed on the reader throughout the report below:

Two Indonesianmen publicly caned 80 times each in Aceh for gay sex

The pair winced
in pain and pleaded for the whipping to stop, as a sharia officer beat their
backs with a rattan stick

The mother of
one man fainted at the sight of her son being flogged

Agence
France-Presse

Published:
7:46pm, 28 Jan, 2021

A man accused
of having gay sex is publicly flogged in Indonesia’s Aceh province. Photo: AFPA
man accused of having gay sex is publicly flogged in Indonesia’s Aceh province.
Photo: AFP

A man accused
of having gay sex is publicly flogged in Indonesia’s Aceh province. Photo: AFP

A gay couple
were flogged in Indonesia’s conservative Aceh province on Thursday, justice
officials said, in a public spectacle lambasted by human rights groups.

The two men
were whipped nearly 80 times each for having gay sex, which is outlawed in Aceh
province under local Islamic law.

The pair, who
were not identified, winced in pain and pleaded for the whipping to stop, as a
masked sharia officer beat their backs with a rattan stick.

The punishment
was briefly halted and the men, both in their twenties, were allowed a drink of
water before it continued.

“Islamic sharia
enforcement is final, no matter who it is, and even visitors must respect local
norms,” public order official Heru Triwijanarko said.

The men were
arrested in November at a rental home where a landlord found them half-naked in
their room.

Gay sex is not
illegal elsewhere in Indonesia and Aceh is the only region in the world’s
biggest Muslim nation that imposes the sharia law.

In Aceh, on the
northern tip of Sumatra island, public flogging is a common punishment for a
range of offences that include gambling, drinking alcohol and adultery.

Four others
were whipped between 17 and 40 times on the same day over allegations they
drank alcohol or met with members of the opposite sex.

Human rights
groups slam public caning as cruel, and Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo has
called for it to end.

But it has
strong support among Aceh’s population.

The region
started using religious law after it was granted special autonomy in 2001, an
attempt by the central government to quell a long-running separatist
insurgency.

Again, what is really going on here? Why is the Western, English-language based media getting all caught up in this story? It's all about pushing a sympathy narrative to normalize homosexuality around the world and to make countries that oppose homosexuality seem barbaric and cruel. Granted, such excessive corporal punishment is a violation of natural law, but it is also wrong for the press to go out of its way to make homosexual pitiable and supportable.