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Contents:

• A GAY IMAM'S STORY: 'THE DIALOGUE IS OPEN ISLAM – 10 YEARS AGO WASN'T'
• MEET THE GAY IMAM CHANGG ATTUS OM WH
• WHAT ’S LIKE TO BE GAY AND MLIM
• GAY PEOPLE ARE RECLAIMG AN ISLAMIC HERAGE
• LIKE MANY GAY MLIM PEOPLE, I HAVE NO FAH PRI
• IN A SURVEY OF AMERIN MLIMS, 0% INTIFIED AS LBIAN OR GAY. HERE’S THE STORY BEHD THAT STATISTIC
• HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: ANTI-GAY LAWS PROMOTE VLENCE, DISCRIMATN ST. VCENT
• EVERYTHG YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT BEG GAY MLIM UNTRI
• MEET AMERI’S FIRST OPENLY GAY IMAM
• WHAT IT'S LIKE TO BE GAY AND MLIM AMERI

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

95% rpectively, which supports the Indiana Universy fdgs of 10%, or 1 10For the sake of simplicy maths, let assume that fdgs suggt that 1 10 mal are homosexual. I also sat the mosque, listeng to the imam talkg about how homosexuals will be thrown to the fire that feeds on the bon of men like the people of Lot. I know mlims that lie, steal, cheat and backbe regularly, but as soon as you mentn the word “gay”, they turn up their nos as if to say that they are once aga p the face of the “abomatns” of men.

Many Mlims argue that homosexualy is a s Islam, and Allah ma so, otherwise he would have ma men+men or women+women able to reproduce. Hassan Nasrallah, the lear of Hezbollah, an Islamist polil group based Lebanon, acced the Wt of exportg homosexualy to the Islamic world, echog Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei’s warng a year before of “ravagg moral y” om the Wt. Sodomy is the act of anal sex, and many prits and Imams argue that men nnot participate homosexual acts bee sodomy volv the excretory system, which was not tend for sex.

MEET THE GAY IMAM CHANGG ATTUS OM WH

) If gay relatnships are probibed bee there is the POSSIBILITY of them havg anal sex, then all straight relatnships should be prohibed for the same reason. Khaled El-Rouayheb, an amic at Harvard Universy, explas that though sodomy was emed a major s by early Mlim urts of law, other homosexual acts such as passnate kissg, fondlg or lbian sex were not.

Meet like-md members wh terts Gay Arabs, Gay Mlim Datg, Gay Mlims, Gay Arabic, Gay Iranians, Gay Egyptians, Gay Persians, Gay Armenians, Gay Afghans, Gay Iraqis.

WHAT ’S LIKE TO BE GAY AND MLIM

As the world’s first openly gay imam he has experienced plenty of rejectn, but now he hop that a new documentary – The Radil, chartg his missn to promote sexual diversy Islam – will be a step towards wir acceptance.

More surprisg was the luge of supportive msag – not least om a uple of fellow imams – and a realisatn of the sheer number of closeted gay Mlims. As an Islamic scholar wh a gree om the Universy of Islamic Studi Pakistan, Muhs believ that homophobia is patible wh the Qur’an’s pictn of a “merciful and passnate” God, and that has been embedd the culture by centuri of patriarchal terpretatn. “Beg Mlim, Arabic and gay and th a member of several mory groups opened my ey: Mori are beg discrimated agast, particularly tim of enomic crisis.

That was until she met openly gay imam Daayiee Abdullah, a former Southern Baptist turned Mlim who studied the Quran Beijg and opened a gay mosque Washgton. In the old days Mlims were que tolerant of homosexualyFOR DECADES regim the Middle East have alleged that homosexualy is both morally unacceptable and a Wtern import. “Ban the lonial law, ” cried mpaigners Tunisia December, referrg to a law crimalisg gay sex wrten by the French more than a century ago.

GAY PEOPLE ARE RECLAIMG AN ISLAMIC HERAGE

“All the homophobic laws the Middle East were brought by lonialism to unrme Islam’s permissive civilisatn, ” says Ramy Khouili, a Tunisian to this story.

LIKE MANY GAY MLIM PEOPLE, I HAVE NO FAH PRI

And they rell that the Ottoman Turks, who led most of the Middle East the 19th century, crimalised homosexualy a century before Ameri and Bra. Back then, “you uld be wh a man or a woman, ” says the transgenr founr of north Ai’s first gay movement, the Abu Nawas Associatn, named after a great Arab poet, who was gay. The Orlando shootg was a hate crime agast gay people – even if, once emerged that the attacker had been a Mlim, many people claimed this as a terrorist attack rather than a hate crime.

Sce the massacre there has been a lot of speculatn about Islam and homosexualy and there are fears that one man’s spible act of terrorism uld fan the flam of Islamophobia and other forms of social excln, leadg to disrd and unrt an era of elevated Islamophobia.

IN A SURVEY OF AMERIN MLIMS, 0% INTIFIED AS LBIAN OR GAY. HERE’S THE STORY BEHD THAT STATISTIC

It is difficult to fe the “Islamic posn” on homosexualy, as a monolhic phenomenon, simply bee Islam is a very diverse fah group wh some 1.

They tend to draw on the story of Lot the Koran (also the Old Ttament) which reunts the stctn of the tribe of Lot allegedly due to their engagement homosexual acts as “evince” for God’s nmnatn of homosexualy. Theologil and legal nmnatns of homosexualy n engenr perceptns at a social level that homosexualy is wrong and that should not be permted.

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: ANTI-GAY LAWS PROMOTE VLENCE, DISCRIMATN ST. VCENT

In my rearch to attus ncerng homosexualy among sampl of first and send-generatn Brish Mlims of Pakistani scent, I found that attus tend to be largely negative. Although rearch to attus towards homosexualy the general populatn pots to mographic variabl, such as age and level of tn, as key termants of the nature of attus, this has not been the se my own work wh Brish Mlims.

EVERYTHG YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT BEG GAY MLIM UNTRI

Moreover, there was a fundamental rejectn of sentialist arguments ncerng the origs of sexual orientatn – that people are born gay and that they do not “choose” to be gay – and terviewe often argued that people had “chosen” to be gay. Ined, prev rearch has shown that believg the sentialist argument regardg homosexualy is rrelated wh ls discrimatn and greater acceptance. Although many Brish Mlims may disapprove of the ncept of homosexualy, several dividuals reported posive first-hand experienc of ntact wh LGBT people.

MEET AMERI’S FIRST OPENLY GAY IMAM

Some people spoke fondly of their LGBT iends, neighbours and acquatanc, suggtg that first-hand ntact may challenge homophobia which exists at an abstract, nceptual level. In view of the generally negative attus towards homosexualy Mlim muni and the silence that n surround discsns of sexualy, most of my Mlim gay terviewe have manifted a poor self-image and low psychologil well-beg. It is easy to see how belief the negativy of homosexualy om the perspective of one’s fah (which, untls studi has emerged as an important inty among Brish Asian Mlims) uld e some gay Mlims to velop ternalised homophobia and, some s, to doubt the thenticy of their Mlim inty.

Ccially, makg sense of the “” unrlyg their sexual orientatn, some gay Mlims were of the view that they had “bee” gay as a rult of their social environment and nsequently blamed Brish society:. I’m gay bee I was brought up here [ Bra] but I reckon if I’d been brought up Pakistan then I would have turned out straight bee this don’t happen that much there.

WHAT IT'S LIKE TO BE GAY AND MLIM AMERI

So there needs to be much more discsn of homosexualy Mlim muni – which will admtedly be difficult given the cultural taboo around sexualy. As I’ve wrten elsewhere, the Eastenrs storyle ncerng Syed Mehmood, a gay Mlim character who stggl to e out to his parents, generated some discsn the Brish Mlim muny and led some dividuals to acknowledge the existence of homosexualy wh their muny.

In addn to improvg relatns between groups, is likely that this exercise will have posive out for well-beg among those dividuals who self-intify as Mlim and gay. Growg up an environment which you are led to believe that your sexual orientatn is wrong, sful or symptomatic of mental illns n lead to profound social and psychologil challeng, cludg ternalised homophobia, low self-teem, prsn and, some s, suicidal thoughts.