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MEET AMERI’S FIRST OPENLY GAY IMAM
HOUSTON - Hoton has a pretty sizeable Mlim populatn and while may e as a surprise, there are members of the muny who happen to intify as gay, lbian, transgenr, or queer. "I want them to know Iftikhar is here, and to make sure I am that rource and be like ‘hey, this is what we have, ’ and I want them to be able to have a muny that is for them to be weled to and feel fortable bee we have a lot of refuge g on asylum that are gay and everythg is the sry for them as they may not have a fay here, or know anyone or even have a muny so they all end up lost, and I don't want that, " she said.
"I knew all my life that I was gay, but I jt I never really accepted for myself bee my dad was so polil the Islamic Society [of Greater Hoton] so was a very big thg for me to e out and I wasn't able to, so was very hard for me. " Currently, Rani said they have a clear unrstandg of their Islamic inty but bee var members of the Mlim muny have negative opns of homosexuals, n raise some eyebrows when others fd out about her sexualy.
But Imam Daayiee Abdullah – believed to be the only openly gay imam the Ameris – is proud of his story. But as a gay man Ameri, he saw that lbian, gay, bisexual and transgenr Mlims had unmet spirual needs and he beme an imam to provi muny support. "Beg an openly gay imam and havg been intified as such, I do get a lot of feedback and also kickback, but that's OK, " said Imam Daayiee Abdullah, of Washgton, D.