Everythg you need to know about beg gay Mlim untri | LGBTQ+ rights | The Guardian

Contents:

• WHAT DO ISLAM SAY ABOUT BEG GAY?
• EVERYTHG YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT BEG GAY MLIM UNTRI
• CAN ONE BE MLIM AND GAY?
• A GAY IMAM'S STORY: 'THE DIALOGUE IS OPEN ISLAM – 10 YEARS AGO WASN'T'
• CAN A MLIM BE GAY?
• AFFIRMG MOSQU HELP GAY MLIMS RENCILE FAH, SEXUALY

WHAT DO ISLAM SAY ABOUT BEG GAY?

Beg lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenr, or any other sexual orientatn or genr inty is difficult enough on s own, but beg Mlim as well n e one to stggle wh rencilg their inty wh Islam and Allah.

If you're stgglg to rencile your LGBT+ inty wh your Islamic fah, n help to unrstand that Islam do not explicly forbid beg homosexual or havg a diverse genr inty. Furthermore, the Quran even mentns "men who are not need of women" (which n be terpreted as men who are gay or asexual) Verse 24:31-24:33, and the men are not nmned anywhere. It's okay to be a Mlim who don't nform to a homophobic or transphobic view of Islam, the same way that other aspects of Islam have evolved and changed over time.

EVERYTHG YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT BEG GAY MLIM UNTRI

WikiHow has articl that may assist you g out, such as (but not limed to) How to Come Out, How to Come Out As Gay or Lbian, How to Come Out As Transgenr, How to Come Out to Your Friends, and How to Come Out to Your Parents. If other Mlims tell you that you aren't a te follower of Islam bee you're LGBT+, you may wish to script a rponse such as, "Actually, the Prophet Lut was nmng the celti occurrg Sodom, and he nmned rape rather than homosexualy.

However, acrdg to a recent survey by Public Relign Rearch Center, more than half (52%) of Amerin Mlims ageed that "society should approve of homosexualy. Acrdg to the Internatnal Lbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Associatn, Turkey sr slightly better on measur of gay rights when pared wh some nearby Christian-majory natns such as Rsia, Armenia and Ukrae. Among them are two of the most popular Turkish entertaers of the past half-century: The late Zeki Muren was flamboyantly gay and the sger Bulent Ersoy is famoly transsexual.

Their eccentricy has apparently add to their beyond the entertament dtry, the tradnal mastream Islamic view on homosexualy produc tolerance Turkey toward gays and creat starker problems Mlim natns that apply Shariah. The average nservative Mlim tak this story as a jtifitn to stigmatize gays, but there is an important qutn that serv nsiratn: Did the people of Lot receive dive punishment for beg homosexual, or for attackg Lot and his heavenly guts? The even more signifint nuance is that while the Quran narrat this dive punishment for Sodom and Gomorrah, cre no earthly punishment for homosexualy — unlike the Old Ttament, which clearly cre that homosexuals “are to be put to ath.

CAN ONE BE MLIM AND GAY?

But signifint nam among them, such as the eighth-century scholar Abu Hanifa, the founr of the popular Hanafi school of jurispnce, argued that sce a homosexual relatnship did not produce offsprg wh an unknown father, uldn’t be nsired real Islamic basis for punishg homosexualy is the hadhs, or saygs, attributed to the Prophet Muhammad. Such jurispntial facts might help Mlims today to velop a more tolerant attu toward gays, as some progrsive Islamic thkers Turkey, such as Ihsan Eliacik, are enuragg. People’s private liv are their own bs, he argu, whereas the public Mlim stance should be to fend gays when they are persecuted or discrimated agast — bee Islam stands wh the downtrodn.

Yet those Mlims who sist on nmng gays should rell that acrdg to Islam, there are many ss, cludg arrogance, which the Quran treats as among the gravt moral transgrsns. I pray and fast regularly, i am straight but the problem is that i am homosexual, i first was thkg of my father, i thk i beme homosexual geilly, i see ually bad pictur, but i want to give up, i never done any sex my life, i really am aaid of god, and i always pray for him to help me. For the harm ed by fallg to this great s is not limed to punishment the Hereafter, rather go beyond that and a part of the punishment may happen this world; even if is nothg more than the regret and feelgs of guilt that rult om , that is enough, so how about if that is acpanied by curable fatal diseas which the doctors are agreed are wispread among homosexuals and are ed by the perverted practic?

Sce they didn't know what to do, 's clear that the Prophet pbuh had never punished someone for homosexualy or given an example for those panns to follow. This nnectn between fahisha and fuq wh homosexualy is not clear om the Qur'an though, and the Qur'an simply do not make a nnectn between za and homosexualy. The Qur'an do discs people who are tersex (wh signs of beg both male and female) as well as the aforementned "men who have no need of women" (who may have been gay, transgenr, or asexual.

A GAY IMAM'S STORY: 'THE DIALOGUE IS OPEN ISLAM – 10 YEARS AGO WASN'T'

Acrdg to the kgdom’s relig police, the school was fed 100, 000 riyals ($26, 650) for displayg “the emblem of the homosexuals” on s buildg, one of s admistrators was jailed and the offendg parapet was swiftly repated to match a blue rabow-ee se of the gaily pated school shows how progrs one part of the world n have adverse effects elsewhere and serv as a remr that there are plac where the nnectn between rabows and LGBT rights is eher new or yet to be Afghanistan, only a few years ago, there was a craze for ratg rs wh rabow stickers – which Che factori were only too happy to supply. It wasn’t until the Afghan Pajhwok news agency explaed how they might be misterpreted that the craze me to a sudn on the ter and you will also fd pi of the “Rabow Qur’an” for sale – an unnscly gay edn of the holy book wh tted pag of every hue and remend on one webse as “an ial gift for Mlims” there are two sis to this cross-cultural misunrstandg.

Genr segregatn, which go to extreme lengths the more nservative Mlim untri, enurag homosocial behavur, creatg a suatn where men are often more fortable the prence of other men and where placg a hand on another man’s knee is a sign of iendship, not an vatn to sex. Historilly, Mlim societi have often acknowledged this – toleratg to some extent even if they the 19th and early 20th centuri, men who had been persecuted for their sexualy Europe often sought refuge Moroc and, long before same-sex marriage was dreamed of the wt, male-on-male partnerships were regnised – and marked wh a ceremony – the remote Egyptian oasis of some Mlim untri, whole towns have bee the butt of jok about the supposed homosexualy of their habants. In Egypt, for example, an old law agast “bchery” is often laws have a tastrophic effect on the liv of people who are unlucky enough to get ught but, spe ocsnal crackdowns, the thori don’t, on the whole, actively seek out gay people to arrt them.

CAN A MLIM BE GAY?

In England 1952, there were 670 prosecutns for sodomy, 3, 087 for attempted sodomy or cent asslt, and 1, 686 for gross problem wh such laws, even if not vigoroly enforced, is that they signal official disapproval of homosexualy and, upled wh the fulmatns of relig scholars, legimise discrimatn by dividuals at an everyday level and may also provi an exce for actn by vigilant.

Years before Isis began throwg allegedly gay men off the top of buildgs, other groups Iraq were attackg “un-manly” men – sometim killg them slowly by jectg glue to the reason for the paratively small number of prosecutns is the official fictn that gay people don’t exist to any great extent Mlim untri; homosexualy is regard primarily as a wtern phenomenon and large numbers of arrts would ll that to qutn.

AFFIRMG MOSQU HELP GAY MLIMS RENCILE FAH, SEXUALY

Some of the most btal Arab regim (Iraq unr Saddam Hse and Syria unr the Assads, for example) also showed ltle tert attackg gay people – probably bee they had other thgs to worry Syrian refugee Subhi Nahas wh the US ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power, durg an rmal meetg on the persecutn of LGBT people by Isis. For those ught, the effect on their liv is tastrophic but the law is not much of a terrent and for those who are discreet about their sexualy the risk of arrt is the vast majory who intify as gay, lbian or transgenr the attus of fay and society are a much bigger one issue that affects all gay people – everywhere – at some pot their liv is g out.