Notes From Inside The Closet: Dear Queer Muslims,
I want you to know that you are not alone. There are so many people out there who are gay or bi or whatever and Muslim. They pray beside you. They go to the same mosque. Some of them have beards and the others headscarves.
I know our community tells us we are “unnatural” or that we should get…
This is beautiful.
More of the ways in which progressive Muslims are routinely discriminated against in our own communities.
Because I believe in human rights for all people, I am “no longer a Muslim”. And the responses afterwards were very cute:
“Should we keep ostracizing these people like we currently are and have in the past? No. We should still engage them in our community as our brothers and sisters while making duaa for their guidance. If we’re not making duaa, then we are just passing judgment and being unproductive. Allah knows best.”
Yes, because what I need now is for you to pray that I turn around and starting hating gay people.
I don’t even know which is more offensive.
Progressive Muslims don’t have it the same way that progressive Christians and Jews do. We have a much more loosely held community, and are very spread out. We are attacked as being Muslim by outsiders, and attacked for not being Muslim enough by insiders.
The progressive Muslim world has a LONG way to go before we will ever be accepted in the United States.
A very interesting conversation about homosexuality and Islam happening on a friend’s FB wall. She posted an article about an imam marrying a gay couple (one of whom has AIDS) and asked for people’s thoughts. I have to say I was surprised how quick people were to say they were against it. For example this dude:
And he got 9 likes! The conversation made me angry, obviously, so I couldn’t stop myself from posting something:
And then this is the response I got, almost immediately I might add.
“Whether we agree or not, God agrees with me, so you are wrong.”
I know you have to pick your battles. And I know this is what is coming for me when I one day perform gay and lesbian marriages for Muslims, but man, it just makes me so angry.
Article here, by the way.
