Homophobia within the Muslim community

[thankssomuchforthat]

Please can we keep this thread calm and good natured as this is a genuine question.
I was genuinely shocked at a spokesperson for the Muslim community on GMB condemning gay people as sinful. Saying being gay is fundamentally wrong. Saying most Muslim people vehemently believe this. Is this true? Or are gay Muslims tolerated within the community? What would happen if a Muslim teenager was gay. Would the family disown them?
Genuine question. I suppose I mix in circles that are tolerant of homosexuality.
Please keep comments nice and friendly.

Crabfish, I think it is important for our continuing development as a tolerant society for all children to be encouraged to understand that difference between people, while sometimes exceptional, is normal for them and perfectly OK. In that context I would want to see picture books as shown on TV yesterday, showing a child with two mummies. Nothing sexual, just the family with two mummies or two daddies. Given that this is OK, would you be OK showing a Muslim family with two mummies or two daddies?

I think the response from politicians and community leaders is really disappointing to be honest. It's not just in Birmingham where Islamic activists are martialling protests against the inclusion of LGBT awareness in primary curriculum.

For clarity there is no sexual content in the material- rather a discussion of the different kinds of families and lifestyle in the UK and crucially how this is enshrined in law. Primaries will have to include an overview of the equalities act in their teaching.

Freedom and speech and freedom of worship are intrinsic to our values but in state funded schools we need to separate religious conviction from the rights of law

As PPs have said, most religious texts will state that homosexuality is a sin. The difference though between Islam and say, Christianity, is that according to Islamic tradition, the Qu'ran is quite literally the word of Allah, told to Muhammad who wrote it down, word for word. With Christianity, there's more wiggle room. Many Christians believe the Bible is written by people inspired by God but still subject to their own prejudices and biases of the time. That gives the Bible a bit more of a "pick the parts you like" quality to it.

Sorry Rufus: having a bit of a slow morning, my age, takes a while for compute to crank into action, but what’s JW? ( J Wetherspoon sprang to mind, sure that can’t be it 😂).

Jehovah's witness

The difference here in my mind is that mostly staunchly conservative (with a small c) Christians have their bigoted views on homosexuality, but are happy to keep it to themselves and not try to change the world to accept their view, i.e. Jacob Rees Mogg. If they are doing their bit right, they'll answer honestly, but not cause a fuss.

Conservative followers of Islam aren't just happy to "keep their toys to themselves" to paraphrase the late and great Christopher Hitchens. They see it as their moral duty to impose their belief system on everyone and anyone that they come in to contact with.

It's all causing a bit of strife for the purveyors of identity politics. The question of which oppressed minority to support?

Personally, i'd throw the book at these protesters. The authorities seem to throw 'hate' legislation charges at anyone to the right of Stalin, surely there is something that could be used to put the willies up this lot, so to speak?

Thank you - der! Of course, would have got there in the end.

It isn’t just a religion issue, it is also a toxic masculinity issue. But in my experience they will attempt to beat it away, if that doesn’t work you’ll be sent ‘home’ if you don’t leave the community. If my family found out my Dad still sees me he would be completely disowned.

So would they be accepted in a mosque if they were openly gay, be accepted by the community?

OP you are talking about Islam as if it one homogenous beast, it isnt there are many offshoots ... what your asking is akin to Is Mormonsism like Catholicism, what with them both being Christian n'all that. The answer is no, it would depend.

I didnt listen to this mornings chit-chat, but I did last week, as this has been dragging on 10 odd weeks, and whether you believe in something or not, fortunately we do have the right to hold individual beliefs. If you dont think that is a fundamental principle of democracy then the country really is in serious trouble. People also have the right to peaceful demonstration.

What I have learned from MN that no one DARE have an alternate opinion, or the pitchforks come out.

And I'm please this thread got to three pages without some arse wankering on about 'sky fairies'

One of my old colleagues is Muslim and he was gay, he never came out to his family as he knew it would cause a huge backlash. He didn't want to leave his family because he really cared about them. Eventually he was forced into an arranged marriage. He doesn't seem happy, I do feel sorry for him as he's genuinely lovely

langrish

I get confused with my spelling...thought i might get struck down if i spelt it wrong

Many people are wondering why OP is asking specifically about the Muslim faith and their attitude towards gay people. We all know that homophobia is taught in most religions but at the moment this issue has come to the fore due to it being highlighted by the fact that there are hundreds of muslim parents up in arms about their children being taught a well need programme on acceptance of others differences which is incredibly homophobic. If it was hundreds of christians or any other religious group protesting then the question qould be aimed at them. Yes before anyone says there a some non muslims who are also against it but it is overwhelmingly Muslims. I know this because I have friends who are Muslim and part of starting the protests much to my disappointment. There is nothing wrong with questioning homophobia in a particular group especially where an issue arises. Its almost akin to "what about the men" when people try to distract from the group of people the issue is about and it in no way lets others off the hook. Look there is a homophobic problem within Muslim communities and it is at odds with British values. It is ok to discuss this.

We need to remember that all religions in the UK fall under the rule of law. It is illegal to discriminate against a person due to their sexuality. The law can be used to protect the gay community. Ultimately educating the young will be the best hope for the future.

Rufus

I get confused with my spelling...thought i might get struck down if i spelt it wrong”

Don’t worry, there are different spellings (yes, I’ve seen Indiana Jones too ...)

To me this is why the protests by parents about LGBT equality being taught in schools, and the school and government response to them is so important. If we allow some children to grow up being told it is a sin and not being told other people feel it is ok to be gay, in 20 years the divisions between these adults and others who had a more liberal education will be huge. Not to mention those LGBT young people who are are only allowed to hear it is a sin and the effect on their wellbeing.

Married to a Muslim man here. Personally I would say it is still the case with the older generation. The younger generation (born in this country) are very slowly changing their views.
If someone was to come out in my husbands family. I don't believe they would 'disown' them. The older generation definitely would not be happy. But from other issues that have gone on the main thing they would do is try and stop the wider family/community from finding out.
In terms of saying would a Mosque not accept them. A mosque literally accepts anyone coming in through the doors if they are coming to pray. They would not refuse anyone. Also that many people go to my husbands mosque they don't all know each other.

practically the whole world thought homosexuality was wrong 50-60 years ago, opinions have changed in certain areas of the world but change takes a long time, it look centuries in most places to move from absolute monarchies / dictatorships to democracies things do change but slowly
Telling groups of people we have changed our minds about this so you need to too can rub huge groups of people up the wrong way ( to put it mildly) imposing new western values is seen in the same light by many communities as neo- colonialism and more white people telling other people our values are better
When the west went through the whole globe telling people Christianity marriage and monogamy were the only way for centuries, you can hardly be surprised when new western messages come out that they are not eagerly embraced, part of the problems in middle East are due to trying to impose western views on democracy etc on other people
What we choose to have as values in the UK is one thing but we are not superior to go around saying our values must be adopted by Korea, Ghana, Mozambique, Egypt Peru etc even if we are convinced we are right and they are wrong
The United Nations say it is a human right to practice any religion or none and to bring up your children in your faith, while atheism is on the rise in the West in the world as a whole it is a very small minority
Tolerance implies we don't agree with the view

For People of many faiths what God's law is will always come ahead of laws that people make, it is better to obey God than people as the consequences for disobeying God are far heavier and eternal than disobeying peoples law, for most Muslims Christians and Jews ( I don't know enough about Hinduism, Sikhism to comment ) the law of the land is subordinate to God's law
For instance when Communism ruled much of Eastern Europe and Bibles were banned as was teaching your children Christianity most devout christians hid their bibles and continued to teach in secret despite knowing the state would encourage children to tell on their parents they knew the sentences could be harsh imprisonment, banishment to Siberia with hard labour even execution but all these were considered in the grand eternal scheme to be minor trials compared to the glory that awaits in heaven and to read and teach the bible was more important that any penalty of the KGB

Exactly, sleeping dragon, surely knowing of different beliefs is a good thing?
I see it as making a more well rounded, knowledgeable and tolerant person.
Whether it be either l, g, b or t, doesn't mean for example knowing about being gay means you're automatically going to want to be it
Teaching tolerance to children is a positive.
Children just accept people for being people, it's adults who are prejudiced

Everanewbie has it exactly right. This is about identity politics, and the clash of two (in identity politics terms) “marginalised groups” coming into conflict. This is what happens when you play the identity politics game - at some point you’re going to have to decide who’s going to win the Oppression Olympics.

It doesn’t work just to use the “whatabout” argument as some posters are on this thread. Yes, other devout religious groups condemn homosexuality. The difference is that those groups aren’t protesting state education keeping their kids home from school because the state’s decision to teach British values like tolerance and acceptance of homosexuality flies in the face of their own beliefs.

Who wins? It’ll be interesting to see who comes out on top in this particular dispute.

Thing is, I don't think it is just Muslim religion, all the mainstream religions such as Catholicism, Orthodox Christians, Jewish and Muslims feel this way as their roots are from the same origin.

“The older generation definitely would not be happy. But from other issues that have gone on the main thing they would do is try and stop the wider family/community from finding out.”

I find that incredibly sad, that families would be ashamed of who their loved ones were. That they care more about what other people think than they do about supporting their loved ones.
Why oh why can’t people just live and let live. I don’t think that’s so naive, before anyone says so . It really could be that simple if the collective will was there.

when this subject was discussed here about a year ago, (it was on an "I'm a Muslim, ask me anything" thread) the Muslim posters agreed that it was the act of homosexuality (ie.having gay sex) that was sinful, not being gay. And yes, the vast majority of Muslims believe this. There was a nationwide study on this very topic a few years back and most Muslim respondents were intolerant of homosexuality and especially the act of gay sex. It's hard to discuss this without being shouted down as an Islamophobe though. Obviously in other orthodox religions, similar views prevail. But the thread is about Muslims (and whilst homophobia is rife in other religions too, it doesn't seem to have the same blanket intolerance afforded it by islam)

Unfortunately yes it's common but not universal - my friend has a gay son and hasn't disowned him (which I've heard of through my DD's) but her son isn't "out" in the Muslim community here, he lives in London and doesn't bring his husband back ever when he visits or attends family functions (but she does visit them). It's sad but this was commonplace in the 80's when I was a teen in the white British community too.

Actually Lottiebel123 my dh is Roman Catholic, and he was talking about it in his homily, and said exactly the same thing.

The priest was talking about it in his homily, and said exactly what the Muslim respondents were saying.