In Muslim communities, homosexuality is intrinsically linked to anxiety, intimidation, violence, and, in some cases, execution. For many, it involves living a closeted existence for fear of being ostracized, disowned, or even “honor” killed by their own families. Yet voices on the Left, especially in America, historically a stronghold of LGBT support, rarely, if ever, decry the abysmal treatment of LGBT Muslims by Muslims, nor do they adequately mobilize against this specific and brutal form of homophobia.
QueerMajority (h/t Gila K) A 2017 American poll found that 51% of Muslim respondents expressed support for marriage equality, an increased figure over previous years – yet 34% still opposed it. Media outlets disingenuously hailed this 51% as some type of success over Christianity, citing the figure to justify headlines such as “Majority of U.S. Muslims Now Support Gay Marriage, While White Evangelical Christians Remain Opposed.”
Noteworthy in this attempt at obfuscation is the comparison between a conservative faction of Christians against a combined figure of liberal and conservative Muslims. In a more honest comparison between conservative Christians and Muslims, the data shows a far more damning portrayal of the conservative Muslim community.
Within Britain, where Muslims are more conservative than their US counterparts, the 2009 Gallup Coexist Index poll asked 500 Muslims if they believed homosexual acts were morally acceptable. 100% agreed that they were not, uniformly presenting homosexual acts as immoral. In the years since, there has been some positive traction around UK Muslims’ attitudes toward homosexuality; however, the picture remains oppressive.
Most notably, a 2015 ICM poll found that 52% of British Muslims felt homosexuality should be illegal, with only 18% stating it should be legal. Equally damning was that 47% felt it was unacceptable for gay people to be allowed to work as teachers.
At an international level, the data around Islamic Homophobia is even more alarming. A 2013 PEW global study on Muslim Attitudes reported an almost unilateral condemnation of homosexuality in Muslim communities around the world.
Turkish police blocked hundreds of people from gathering for Istanbul’s annual Pride parade on Sunday and detained dozens after local authorities banned the march from going ahead again this year. Thousands of people used to attend Pride marches in Istanbul. However, in recent years, the government led by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has toughened its stance on LGBTQ+ freedom.
All 8 states or territories that mandate the death penalty for homosexuality are Muslim-majority. Among those that do not, many imprison people for being LGBT instead. All of these punishments are derived from mainstream interpretations of Sharia Law and Islamic Jurisprudence, which positions homosexuality as a major sin often equated to Sodomy and adultery. Where people are executed for the crime of being LGBT, the preferred methods of execution are public hanging or public stoning. Unsurprisingly, this international climate of execution and imprisonment encourages mob violence towards LGBT people.
While an international contextualization of Islamic Homophobia is important, it would be erroneous to assume that its detrimental impact on LGBTI individuals takes place exclusively in faraway places such as Afghanistan and Iran. In the West, honor culture – a community mechanism of social control in which coercive tactics such as shunning, loss of community status, and shaming are utilized to pressure family members to take corrective action against those who do not conform to Islamic rules – often thrives within Muslim communities.
In 2017, Jahed Choudhury, a UK Muslim of Bangladeshi heritage, married his White partner in what was called “the first Muslim Gay wedding.” He was featured in the press with his husband and interviewed on national television. Some weeks later, he told a BBC interviewer that members of the Muslim community spat at him in the street. He also revealed that he was receiving hate comments on social media and described a specific message from someone in the community threatening to throw acid on him the next time they saw him.
In 2017, Mahad Olad, a gay American ex-Muslim, was invited to travel to Kenya by his family, who are part of the Somali diaspora community. When they arrived, his mother confiscated Olad’s passport, and informed him that she was aware he was gay and that he had left Islam. In order to “save” him, she had decided to send him to Somali Sheikhs who would bring him back to Islam and make him straight. Only with the assistance of Ex-Muslims of North America was Olad able to escape his kidnappers and return to the USA.
In another 2017 incident, Siddika Reza, who was Secretary General of the Islamic faith organization NASIMCO (the Organization of North American Shia Ithna-Asheri Muslim Communities), attended the public, same-sex marriage of her son to his fiancé. After she shared pictures of the wedding on her social media account, more than 1000 members of the Shia Muslim community signed a petition calling for her to resign, – essentially, claiming that public endorsement of her son’s wedding was endorsement of sin and was therefore un-Islamic. The result? She resigned.
In 2019, Seran M, a Swiss 17-year-old of Iraqi heritage, awoke in bed with his father standing over him holding a knife and shouting, “Are you gay? Are you gay?” The father then proceeded to slit Seran’s throat. Fortunately, the teen was able to scramble over a balcony and obtain aid from his neighbours; he was put into an induced coma at a hospital and managed to survive.
These overt displays of violent Islamic homophobia are rarely, if ever, reported by the Western media.
Youtube banned this video for “hate speech” by removing a MEMRI clip of Pakistani-born Canadian imam Zafar Bangash calling for the stoning to death of gays.
The influence of Islamic homophobia is not limited to the private domestic sphere. Its adherents’ ambitions are to ensure that LGBT rights do not achieve acceptance and that homosexuality is not normalized within wider society, driving them to take their charge into the public arena.
In 2019, Anderton Park School in Brimingham, UK, was the target of protest from members of the Birmingham Muslim community over a primary school education program named “No Outsiders,” as well as other material which they claimed furthered the “gay agenda.” Prior to a court injunction forcing relocation, the protest was held immediately outside the school gates, creating a frightening and intimidating environment for students inside.
In an effort to show support with a head teacher who had refused to cave to the pressure, LGBT individuals from Birmingham decided to go to the school and hang signs of solidarity, such as pictures of hearts and rainbows, on the school gates. They decided to do this at night so that they would not encounter the protesters and risk direct conflict. Unfortunately, they had not considered that it was Ramadan, and that the Muslim community would be awake late at night, eating before fasting again the next day. In video footage of the resulting confrontation, male members of the Muslim community can be seen creating a climate of fear and intimidation, shouting at LGBT people for coming into “our community.”
Given the data and visible detrimental impact, one would expect the left, which generally sees itself as a bastion of support for LGBT rights, to champion the challenge against Islamic homophobia. Unsurprisingly, this is not the case. The left remains silent when, for example, Muslim clerics attempt to exorcize gay demons from members of the Muslim community.
Canadian taxpayer money is used to fund the ‘Queers Against Israeli Apartheid’ parade, yet not one dime is spent on a ‘Queers Against Islamic Homophobia’ parade.
As if the left’s silence was not detrimental enough to LGBT rights, its accusations of racism and Islamophobia towards those who seek to criticize Islamic homophobia are a blatant betrayal. The message was clear: you cannot champion LGBT rights in the UK if you are white and your homophobic opposition is non-White, and to do so renders you racist and neo-colonialist.
At the 2017 London Pride march, the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain (CEMB) marched to challenge Islamic Homophobia – with particular focus on Chechnya, where reports of LGBT persecution and gay concentration camps had outraged the community. They carried banners listing the countries that mandated the death penalty for homosexuality, and held witty, provocative placards and signs poking fun at Islam.
Near them, a separate contingent of Pride marchers held signs poking fun at Christianity. Pride, after all, had always been a safe place to criticize homophobia whether it was religious, political or cultural.
Lesbian MSNBC host, Rachel Maddow, who is quick to condemn Christians on many levels, never said a word about this man at the Muslim Day prayer event Washington, DC, who proclaimed: “We Muslims believe in capital punishment for homosexuality.”
During the march, police descended on CEMB to tell them that their signs were offensive and requested they be put away. However, they did not accost the holders of signs mocking Christianity. CEMB declined the request and continued to march with their banners and signs. During the march, police descended on CEMB to tell them that their signs were offensive and requested they be put away. However, they did not accost the holders of signs mocking Christianity.
It does not matter that some of the critics were Muslim and others Ex-Muslim. It did not matter that almost all the protesters were diaspora and refugees, individuals who had grown up and lived under Islam and were from Muslim families. It did not matter that many of them had fled countries and communities where imprisonment or death were the penalty for their sexuality. Any criticism of Islamic homophobia was deemed Islamophobic (anti-Muslim) and racist.
It is hypocritical of the left to allow consistent highlighting and condemnation of Christian homophobia and to position Christians (and, by presumed extension, white people) as robust, rational, critical thinkers able to withstand that criticism while characterizing Muslims as fragile “brown people” in need of protection from cognitive dissonance and critical thinking. This adherence to “Islamic fragility” is racist, paternalistic and patronizing.
Any focus on Islamic homophobia is inevitably challenged by the left with the question, “What about Christians?” It is perfectly acceptable to focus on one specific form of homophobia. In fact, it is essential that this be done, and in so doing it is appropriate to focus on the worst forms of homophobia.
Attempting to address Islamic homophobia using an approach tailored to Christian homophobia, or a model designed for tackling homophobia in China, will miss many of the nuances particular to the Islamic faith. It will also be rendered meaningless for a Muslim audience who, by and large, consider Christianity or atheism to be erroneous or even heresy.
A Muslim in America calls in to NewYork 1, a New York City TV News station to say, “We believe all homosexuals should be beheaded.” Where is the Leftist outrage?
Bubba Grump's Nutz says
G_d made man.
Samuel Colt made them all equal.
I’ll see your Sword and raise you a Colt 44 Magnum.
Rob R says
I just thought at this point in history, I should point out that gay rights means me having sex with another dude (or living with a dude) without being hassled about it… yeah? Same goes for lesbians.
It’s not like, a thing where…if you walked down a street with a flag, __that alone__ is some sort of victory. It may be the only aim of gay rights folks in Turkey or whatever.
The rainbow flag causes a lot of embarrassment to me because some people they seem to enjoy waving a flag in people’s faces more than they enjoy living life. It’s not about a flag (a flag which has its origins from a children’s movie, the Wizard of Oz)
Just… a little reminder?
BareNakedIslam says
Exactly right, Rob. I have never understood why the Gay community allowed itself to be manipulated by the addition of so many chosen “lifestyles” that have virtually nothing to do with being born gay.Do you?
allanivarsson says
There is no end to the Islamophobia crap. Politicians in every Western Nation have cowardly thrown it into the too hard basket. They don’t want to lose Muslim Votes.
And ‘Communist China’ eliminates it by force.
‘Freedom of Speech’ is banned by Xi Jinping Communist Beijing.
https://allanivarsson.com/islamophobia/
Linda Rivera says
DECEIVERS! Hypocrites!
More Deception from the Cult of Deception. It’s why pedophile warlord Mohammad called his GOD of MASS MURDER, the Greatest Deceiver.
Mohammad’s Greatest Deceiver is who Muslims have placed their faith and trust in for where they will spend all of eternity.
Muslim NATIONS, GOVERNMENTS and LEADERS DON’T CONDEMN, and have NEVER CONDEMNED Homosexual MUSLIM MALES RAPING YOUNG BOYS.
MUSLIM HOMOSEXUALS
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-army/2017/11/17/dod-ig-us-troops-were-told-to-ignore-child-sex-abuse-by-afghan-forces/
DoD IG: US troops were told to ignore child sex abuse by Afghan forces
Nov 17, 2017
American troops were told to ignore the rape and abuse of children by Afghan security forces they were partnered with, according to a report released Thursday by the Pentagon’s inspector general.
Although the report found that there was no written guidance telling U.S. troops to ignore abuse allegations, cultural-awareness training for U.S. personnel deploying to Afghanistan identified
child sexual abuse as a culturally accepted practice in Afghanistan.
”Bacha bazi,” which translates as “boy play,” is a cultural practice in which “powerful or wealthy local figures and businessmen sexually abuse young boys who are trained to dance in female clothes,” the report reads.
In 2015, findings by the Labor Department on “The Worst Forms of Child Labor” stated that “reports indicate that some government officials, including members of the Afghan National Police, Afghan Local Police, and the Afghan Border Police, have boys for bacha bazi and also have them work as tea servers or cooks in police camps.”
This most recent Defense Department investigation began in February 2016 at the behest of Congress, after reports surfaced in the media that Afghan forces had engaged in crimes such as rape, kidnapping, sex slavery, beatings, and pedophilia from 2011 and 2012, according to the report.
Linda Rivera says
We must have annual STRAIGHT PRIDE parades in all of our countries to CELEBRATE the JOY of being Straight! A Fun, HAPPY day!
Unfortunately, anti-freedom, fascist leftist Joy Killers would never allow it. Marxist Cultural Political elites only give their eager approval and full support for Gay Parades.
allanivarsson says
Linda, now that is an excellent idea, competing against Gay Parades.
SB666 says
Just come back from Pride London. ONE MILLION people on the streets for the Parade which went on from 12.00 noon to well past 5.00pm nonstop. There was only a little aggro from VERY aged male Evangelicals well mocked for their ‘mild’ preaching against the thousands passing them in fancy dress and costumes. Funnily someone hijacked their p.a. and it started playing ABBA’s ‘Dancing Queen’ and the like to the delight of the masses. Meanwhile at the main static event – the HUGE Concert in Trafalgar Square – the homophobic Metropolitan Police were well in evidence. We didn’t want a repeat of those killed and maimed by hate as at Oslo Pride so we suppose that the sight of a bunch of uniformed oiks would deter bombers. Luckily there were no real hate incidents at all. But the a’holes also had a Help Tent there, and but 30 yards from this were two stinking male muzzies dispensing free Korans from a table to the crowds – and they had takers. When I raised merry hell about this and why, the coppers looked at me sideways as though I should be the one arrested for raising concern. As I said to them, nothing would done about my complaint – and I was right.
BareNakedIslam says
Glad there was no violence. As for the Qurans, it’s good for non-Muslims to read it. Problem is, the translated versions have been totally whitewashed, leaving out most of the violence.
“Dancing Queen” is one of my faves.
allanivarsson says
BNI, I have four different translations of the Koran, not one has been whitewashed of violent texts. That softening tactic must be some new trend, since after 2001.
Yes, I love Abba, I have been a fan since I was young.
I encouraged people to read the Qur’an to wake them up. When I owned an education bookshop years ago before I retired mid-2010, I tried to encourage local Christians to read the Koran to wake them up. But all the locals in Northern NSW refused to read it. They did not want to learn the danger of Islam.
I had a Muslim convert come to my store trying to sell me Islam. After he came back the second time, I ordered him out of the store and told him never to come back.
I gave out yellow highlighted photocopies of violent Koran text pages to people who did not believe there were violent texts in the Koran. But they were not Christians, they were non-religious. I turned against Islam in 1984 when I read its treacherous texts.
https://allanivarsson.com/sharia-law-australia/
SB666, thank you for sharing that insight with us. Very informative.
I have followers but I am not popular in all my website writings, because I don’t give any quarter.
BareNakedIslam says
Glad to hear that, Allan. But the one CAIR gives out for free in the US is whitewashed.
allanivarsson says
BNI, I did not know that it would be interesting to compare what they deleted. Because by ‘Blasphemy Law’ CAIR is guilty of treason & ‘Blasphemy’ for condensing the Koran. Penalty in Islam is death.
A condensed version of the Koran means that copy can be burned, for ‘Blasphemous’ deletion of texts.
Rebel Patriot says
Leftists are cowards. Leftist are scared shitless of muslims and when the muslims say shit, the leftist cowards shit themselves.
tpm says
This is one thing that muslims got right
andrewblackadder says
Hate the Sin… Love the Sinner…. Christianity.
Hate the Sin… Kill the Sinner…….islam.
Wee bit of a difference there, dont ya think…
allanivarsson says
Yes, Andrew, Christianity loves the sinner Islam.
Logan James says
As if gay Muslims are better. They read that same stupid book and mostly are offspring of borderline incest.
Az gal says
Off topic: more idiot Moslems.
https://allthatsinteresting.com/pakistan-tiktok-fires?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=atinewsletter
Linda Rivera says
Az gal, Every one guilty of maliciously starting fires must be punished with lifetime imprisonment.
Fires KILL.
As gal says
It makes absolutely no sense & is so hypocritical. It’s like slavery. Every time I hear some leftist whine about how we had slaves in the US 200 years ago, how bad we are, give blacks reparations, etc. I always say, “If you really care about slavery, what about slaves now in the Islamic world. Do you care about slaves now? What do you propose to do about modern day slavery?” Then it’s silent, like I never said anything.
allanivarsson says
Well said As gal.
Cash and Carry says
Clue: Charlie with suitcases full of dodgy Muslim cash. What do we not know about?