Muslim with balls of steel to open first French gay mosque!

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He will need wealthy, powerful friends.

One thing that I like about this thread is that all WP contributors so far feel that Mr. zahed has the right to love whom he chooses, marry whom he chooses, and to worship God as he chooses.

We are very nice people; wouldn't it be nice if everyone respected Mr. Zahed's right to freedom as we do?

Sylkat

^Respecting someone's rights doesn't make you a nice person, it just makes you not an a***hole. It's what you should do.

A gay man facing the possibility of violence from intolerant people around him? Now that has never happened before. [/sarcasm]

Since 2000, in North America, far too many gay and lesbian people have been killed for reason of their sexuality, or their perceived sexuality. A very few minutes research can put together a partial list: Andrew Anthos, Jason Gage, Sakia Gunn, Sean Kennedy, Larry King, Glenn Kopitske, Danny Overstreet, Richie Phillips, August Provost, Michael Sandy, Raymond Taavel, Arthur Warren, Scotty Joe Weaver, Aaron Webster.

This list doesn't include those who died in previous decades, like Allen Schindler and Matthew Shepherd.
It omits those who were not killed by their attackers, like Nima Daivari or Ritchie Dowrey.
It omits those who were harassed to the point of suicide, like Tyler Clementi, Jamie Hubley and eleven year old Carl Walker Hoover.

It does not take a muslim fundamentalist to visit violence upon LGBT people. A quick review of significant cases of violence directed against LGBT people will amply demonstrate that we have just as much--if not more--to fear from white men as we do from muslims or any other ethnic or religious group.

Perhaps all the people concerned for Mr. Zahed's safety from his fellow Muslims might take a moment to consider the safety of LGBT people in their own neighborhoods, from the violence and intolerance that they might encounter there. After all, it seems hypocritical to cast aspersions on one community for precisely the same faults that are found in one's own.

If you aren't doing something about the violence that takes place in your community, then your concern for Mr. Zahed is both hypocritical and despicable.

I see that Tequila has changed his opinion, and now thinks Islam is accepting of homosexuals, and that extremists distort the Koran and Sharia Law to persecute them. Good for him, I approve of this.

If this someone posted Islam can be accepting of homosexuality on PPR, he would be shouted down immediately and told he doesn't know anything about Islam. Just saying...

No, I don't think that Islam or Muslims in general are in any way accepting of homosexuality. Not one bit of it. 0% of UK Muslims are accepting of homosexuality, for example. (Oh, and consult the legal codes of most Muslim countries for further advice.)

I think that this man has a great challenge on his hands (the usual rounds of death threats and physical assaults), and I sympathise greatly with him - I wish him all the good luck in the world, given that he's so bravely going against the violently-held opinions of dangerous, psychotic, bearded maniacs. This courageous fella will need it.

If this Muslim drinks, there's a pint on the bar for him. If he doesn't, there'll be a coffee of his choice all the same.

Dear Tequila, his spouse is pretty much in danger,too,isn't he, being an openly gay Muslim?
Isn't that considered a sin equal to adultery in Islam?

Sylkat

0%. Really? You can't think of a single muslim in the UK that accepts homosexuality?

How about Waheed Alli? Pav Akhtar? Who were those people on the Gay Muslim float during London Pride? Christians all?

Clearly the number--however low--is higher than 0%. But why should you let facts interfere with your prejudices?

I think the number was rounded down somewhat...

He may have been referring to this study, which found that zero out of 500 British Muslims in a Gallup poll expressed moral acceptance towards homosexuality, compared to 35 percent of French Muslims. (and statistically speaking, that would yield a confidence interval for the population average of exactly zero)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/may/0 ... osexuality

This is of course only a sample (and Waheed Alli and Pav Akhtar are the proverbial black swans in this case), but it does suggest that anti-Homosexual sentiment among British Muslims is quite pronounced. Considering that homosexuality is legal in the country with the most populous Muslim community in the world, Indonesia (except Aceh), this is all the more disconcerting...

We all know that the number is somewhere in the low 10's or single digits, and that Tequila wasn't being 100% literal with his "0" but why think he's prejudice? I don't get that..... If we were comparing and contrasting the West vs Islam in regards to each's treatment of gay folks, one is clearly better than the other. Maybe you're assuming that it has to be one or the other, and that both can't be scrutinized.

EDIT: added an "n't"

Yes, there are quite a few gay Muslims in Britain, but I suspect that most of them are very closeted (far more than, say, the average white person would be in the same situation) due to the widespread homophobia in the UK Muslim community. There is most certainly still remaining homophobia in the white community - and I wouldn't say otherwise - but it's far less concentrated.

Yes, that was the survey I was referring to - 0 out of 500 people think that homosexuality is morally acceptable (so 0% of that poll). I'm not saying that no British Muslims accept homosexuality - that would be bigoted, and the way I phrased it wasn't right and was very sloppy indeed. My abject apologies for giving the wrong impression.

It does seem, though, that French Muslims are quite a bit more liberal and laid-back about homosexuality than British Muslims, but this might have something to do with the cultural background of many of the French immigrants as opposed to the ones in the UK. Good on the French Muslims for that, I say.

I meant the noun "prejudice" as in the sense of prejugement--a preconceived opinion that is not grounded in evidence or actual experience; not the adjective "prejudiced."

However, it is now [EDITED] clear to me that the 0% figure did not reflect a prejudice, for it was grounded in evidence that I was not aware of.

I apologize for my error, and in particular, I apologize for (and retract) my statement that the 0% figure was a fiction intended to support a prejudice.

Last edited by visagrunt on 11 Dec 2012, 2:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.

And at the end of the day Tequila was being literal citing that one particular study..... and as per your statement in another thread, I am also excited to see what Disney does with the Star Wars franchise, IMO, it's up for grabs after Lucas shat on the last three movies....