On Homosexuality and Islam - again.

A (Muslim) friend on Facebook posted an article called "Meet America's First Openly Gay Imam." Almost all of the responses, as we can probably imagine, were repulsive, homophobic, disturbing, and ignorant. And very arrogant, I must add. But I'm so, SO happy that this article exists, that homosexual Muslims and Imams exist, and that it's publicly being discussed at last. I'll share my thoughts below on the topic, mostly in responses to the homophobia in the comments to my friend's original post. Some of the comments said, of course (because this is a common thing we hear from a lot of people, whether Muslims or non-Muslims), that homosexuality is a disease and needs to be cured and that we need to help gay people. Dot Dot Dot. And then most of the other comments were further about the whole "I don't have a problem with gay people, but to publicize it and promote it ..." stuff that our ears and minds hurt to hear so much around us all the time when we find ourselves in a world that is oh so miserably being wasted with all sorts of oppression. One of these sorts of oppression is the suppression of views and practices and sexualities and identities we cannot personally relate to and that we have very little understanding, if any understanding at all, of.

Anyway, here goes something that may or may not be worth a share. Peace to all!

 

Homosexuality isn't the issue or disease here, fellow Muslims. The real disease is our intolerance, our narrow interpretation and practice of Islam that we refuse to believe can be interpreted and practiced in multiple ways--because God is greater than our limited understanding--and our ignorance. I am simply disgusted with the homophobia here, that even in the name of Islam. It's embarrassing. Once upon a backward time in humanity, too, the popular idea was that homosexuality is a disease that could be cured, and it's always disturbing to be reminded that some of us are still stuck in that frozen time. Peace to all, anyway. 

 

There's a great deal of scholarship on the topic of homosexuality & Islam, from traditional perspectives and non-traditional perspectives (to use the dichotomy loosely). My problem is with some of us asking questions as though they've never been asked before. Possible answers do exist, y'all. You might not like them, but others among us might find them helpful. So especially in a time when knowledge is dangerously available at our finger tips, what's the hesitance, if not downright refusal, with turning to actual scholarly material instead of going in circles with our qs on anything Islam? Granted that most of us will not consider the same sources authoritative, but there's truly no harm but only good in understanding this issue from the perspective of this imam, from your own perspectives, and from others that you may have never thought imaginable before. Qur'anic verses we're throwing left and right unfairly to our own advantage have been and *continue to be* discussed by scholars of various beliefs, including those you'll agree with, those you'll disagree with kindly, those you'll condemn, those you might never understand at all. Why not look the issue up to see how Muslim gay imams, Muslim homosexuals, and non-homophobic Muslims see this issue instead of implying that things are always black and white and that it's your way/interpretation/understanding or hellfire?

P.S. While some possible answers do exist (or at least a vibrant and important discussion on the topic does), that's not to say that it's even nearly sufficient. We Muslims need to seriously let go of our fear of all things "gay" and stop seeing everything we personally disagree with or personally find repulsive because of our narrow-mindedness, which we misleadingly attribute to a religion that's far greater than you and me, and open our eyes to the possibility of not knowing everything on a topic that's considered a taboo in 2013.

 

Other homosexuality-related posts:

 

- On what happens when Afghan homosexuals finally come out (openly say that they're gay)

- From a taveler-reader: On Pashtuns, Homosexuality, Gender, and Marriage in the Pashtun Society

- "Islamic" rulings on Muslim lesbians' interactions with other Muslim women 

- The heteros and the homos -- and no one in between