Indonesia has declared that the LGBTQ+ movement is a non-military threat to its national security. While other people see the inherent horizontal issue this might bring to a marginalized group, I think there's another motive behind such decision.

Witch hunting.

Because how in the hell can you defend yourself if you're designated as an LGBTQ+ person? Let me give you an example.

The spectrum

LGBTQ+ is a spectrum. There's a + symbol for a reason. That symbol designates that people in the movement see everything not overtly straight and allo-sexual as part of the LGBTQ+.

Thus, when we consider this blanket statement of "everything that is not overtly straight and allosexual", suddenly a lot of people are a threat to the Indonesian security. Do you feel that your sexual nature is nonexistent before you know a person? Do you not feel a sexual attraction to a celebrity or a public figure despite them fitting what was supposed to be your designated opposite sex?

You are now a threat to national security.

This is a talking point a lot of LGBTQ+ activists are campaigning. That straightness and them being marginalized is a long standing lie and conspiracy to cover the fact that "LGBTQ+ has existed throughout the history" and that the straights are actually the null point something demographics. It just happens to be that the straights hold power for centuries.

Imagine if this framework is used against the Indonesian people. How many are now exposed to be a risk to national security and could be apprehended legally?

The communist parallel

The same thing happened in 1965 when then-president Suharto needed a boogeyman to witch hunt political dissidents and oppositions. Communism, however, is not as blanket as LGBTQ+.

When someone is accused of being a communist, they could deny it. It's difficult, but communism as an ideology actually has boundaries: a reverence towards a utopia society without money. LGBTQ+, however, is an identity.

You can't reasonably deny you are born in 1994. Same as you can't reasonably deny you have the XY chromosome. These are identities and they are inherent. When an identity is marked as a threat, it is indefensible.

What we are missing from the discussion is not about the ethics of designating sexuality and identity as threat to national security. But it's the way the state of Indonesia could accelerate this designation to common people with patterns of thinking deviating the government's.

A cold wind

The actual downstream victims of this LGBTQ+ blanket ban is actually people with common sense and people who questions. Questioning governmental decisions, at some point, could be considered part of the + in LGBTQ+.

There are historical precedent for this. It's a slippery slope towards pure authoritarianism.

We should all realize that there's something going on in the way our government is moving. Because to me, this ban is never about the marginalized group. It's about softening the idea of wrongthink.