Balancing homosexuality and Islam? Impressive!

The service, known as a nikah, is a Muslim matrimonial contract. The personal account of the couple's meeting and instant connection could easily be believed to be between a man and a woman, not between two members of the same sex: " 'We met about three years ago, at an iftar - a breaking of fast during Ramadan. I think a lot of Muslims find that time of year very spiritual and very enlightening, and so I think that's why our relationship developed, because we spoke about our faith. Eventually we went on a date.' " The couple though, are without a doubt homosexual. The fact that couples just like Asra and Sarah, the couple we just heard from, are looking for religious bonds is an amazing and legitimate goal. Gay British Muslims are increasingly pushing for the right of marriage. And not just any marriage! They could be bound by a more liberal marriage, but they really want a MUSLIM homosexual marriage, and what is wrong with that? Nothing. The speed the couple seemed to move at, with Sarah proposing on the first date, is explained by the fact that relationships in general are a serious matter. The fact that the couple wanted to keep things as "pure as possible" is something to be celebrated. If a couple is that respectful to religious rites, why then can they be rejected? Not knowing much about the nikah service, investigated a little: it's normally given, as are Christian marriages, to heterosexual couples. It doesn't necessarily require an Imam though, but just some one, as the BBC article says "knowledgeable enough about the Qur'an". The by-the-book nature of Sarah and Asra's service is a beautiful thing and a testament to religious homosexuals not just of the Muslim faith, but of every faith! However, Asra and Sarah's story isn't perfect: Asra's parents were against the whole affair as 'religious Muslims' and did not attend the nikah (wedding). Not going to a daughters wedding on religious grounds is disturbing though! It's something that only really happenes once, just like in heterosexual unions. An argument of homosexuality being against the tenents of Islam is true, not knowing much about the Muslim faith I wouldn't feel comfortable trying to argue for or against it though. However, the Imam Daayiee Abdullah said something in the BBC article that really resonated with me: "By not allowing same-sex couples to wed... there is a direct attack on the Qur'an's message that each person has a mate who is their 'comfort and their cloak'. However, instead of Islam being harsh on gays, some say that it is actually the reverse: gays are strongly Islamophobic. Sarah and Asra agree, going a step further: lamenting the incidence of gays actually believing you can't believe in anything. I would lament on this point myself, looking from the outside in. Yes, Religion is sometimes not very supportive of LGBTs and their rights. However, that is not to say that you cannot be gay and religious. Faith in God is often times very straining. I would encourage homosexuals to come to God and ignore the loud personal prejudices that many groups raise. There is no reason why any group should not come to God. For this reason I applaud Sarah and Asra, and all of those just like them in their success.

Uganda on the anti-homosexuality world stage.

The material on the Ugandan Anti-Homosexuality Bill and the Anglican Church there is actually a part of the Final Project that I am doing which involves anti-homosexuality laws around the world. So first of all, I’d like to provide a little background information. The Ugandan Anti-Homosexuality Bill, put forward by David Bahati, a Ugandan parliament member, would broaden the criminalization of homosexuality if enacted by introducing the death penalty for people who have previous convictions of being homosexual, are HIV-positive and participated in sexual acts, or engage in same sex acts with people less than 18 years of age. Also, life terms in jail, public humiliation and suffering would be supported by the law. The bill also includes provisions for Ugandans who engage in same-sex sexual relations outside of Uganda, asserting that they may be extradited for punishment back to Uganda, and includes penalties for individuals, companies, media organizations, and/or non-governmental organizations that support LGBT rights! Despite this, a prominent member of the Ugandan Anglican Church, Canon Gideon Byamugisha, has still joined international condemnation of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, saying it “will breed violence and intolerance”. He also warns that it will be little short of "genocide", a statement which is completely true by the way! The good news, though, is that international outrage has led to voting delays on the issue. This is not necessarily down to because the Ugandans have realized that it's an immoral law, but more due to the fact that nation-states such as Sweden and Germany have threatened to down-size or even stop their foreign investments should the law be passed. This is an aspect of the story which is covered to a lesser extent in the NPR story. This quote from the NPR story may explain the situation most aptly: “… Prison terms for Ugandans who fail to report a homosexual within 24 hours; lifelong prison sentences for a single homosexual act; and the death sentence for a range of acts, including having gay sex while HIV-positive, having gay sex with a disabled person or being classified as a "serial offender" — that is, someone who has gay sex more than once.” The personal experiences that we are introduced to by the NPR story are also very powerful and tell of lives lived in fear: an awful concept for those who support lesbians, gays, and the other groups. The fact that almost every important religious community has voiced their opposition to this Bill is a spot of good news. That combined with the fact that Uganda is a more Christian nation-state than other African states which are often Islamic and are anti-homosexual on the basis of religious Sharia law similarly bodes well for the fight here. In the end though, God willing, proponents of LGBT rights will win out over the at best insensitive proposed law. Uganda can be an example for the rest of Africa on homosexuality, hopefully they will choose to be the right kind of example. People like Byamugisha are working to this end and I salute them.

Constitutionality, Faith, and LGBT Rights.

As we find in the beginning of Sarah Gordon's "Covenants of Love" in the Spirit of the Law: if the letter of the law dictates a result, technicality rather than spirit rules. This is itself Biblical in origin: “for the written law (letter) condemns to death (kills), but the Spirit gives life.” from  II Corinthians Chapter 3 Verse 6. The Spirit is the driving force for many and the law is just the result of its power, not the source of said power. To those committed to secular law, those motivated by spiritual rather than secular legal concerns are often pushed into the category of lay actors, drawing on non-legal experience and sovereign loyalties that lie outside of the state. With this argument, I could see it just becoming an attack on the personal beliefs of certain people. Oh wait! That already happens to groups pro- and anti-LGBT rights. Along these and similar lines, there has always been tension between spirit-filled and the law-bound in American History since the Revolution. The Constitution does, however, protect and honor those who live by the spirit. Although, it is hard to tell where religion ends and the secular begins. When it comes right down to it, Religion makes a difference not only in the personal lives of people, but also in the law and society where faith finds expression. Rabbi Devon Lerner, a Jewish liturgical member who litigated and lobbied for same-sex marriage in Massachusetts, was a member of a group of progressive religious denominations. She found that the separation of church and state was not a solid, real argument. Religion clauses in the Constitution are often used as a protection for some people/stands/groups, but they don't provide a defense for all arguments that highlight it as supporting their respective faction. It was impressive personally, after a little background research, to find that Rabbi Lerner came into the field of constitutional law through her religious commitments. That is, not on a secular/political route! I am curious; however, what the group she was involved with was called. As far as I could read, they were never mentioned by name; is there a reason for this? Also, whenever reading you must pay attention to laws to the same depth as you would religion. The old world is going, although things first changed when religion clauses and the Constitution were first put into effect. It's pretty simple that the new world is to be created by believers and religious practitioners. The letter of the law now protects spiritual concepts in a regime dedicated to religious liberty. Disestablishment was a big issue for a lot of early American History, post American Revolution, however battlefields change. The Salvation Army was quite a creative force for the agenda they were pushing: they are an example of the stubborn vitality of popular constitutionalism. Salvation Army Lieutenant Lizzie Franks was another big player, specifically in the Salvation Army’s pushes. Finally, the areas of life where believers were supposed to be in need of protection included sexuality, patriotism, parenthood, education, identity, etc. which may illustrate some points of conflict that we find today.

ACLU v.s. sore losers?

The fact that we still held people’s sexual orientation against them when it comes to adoption in the early 2000’s is something that is quite disturbing but the fact that laws banning the practice have been repealed is a step in the right direction. As the article about the repeal on the Florida ACLU page describes, the gay man had been raising two foster children on a spur of the moment notice and was a licensed foster care giver! The fact that he had invested four years in developing, teaching, and caring for the two children should be reason enough for him to continue to hold them in adoption. If the court had decided to remove the children from his care, the psychological stress that would have been imposed on the children, and the sense of loss felt by the parent, would have been a disgraceful blemish upon our state’s judicial system. The fact that we have an organization such as the ACLU in these cases is very good because this court case will hopefully remove this kind of a threat from any other families in the future. The court ruling that the ban violated the equal protection guarantees of the state constitution because it singles out for different treatment gay people and the children they raise for no rational reason were well thought out and will hopefully provide useful precedent for further LGBT civil rights advances. The ruling also holds a special significance because of the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 which protects adopted children’s rights to permanency. The fact that Anita Bryant, who we read about not two weeks ago, pushed this bill through which has now been revoked illustrates the return to intelligence and understanding that our state has needed. Another factor that is important to remember is that the law was one of the most expansive that was against homosexuals. The fact that CFCE performed a preliminary home study and the home received a positive sign-off should also have been reason enough to allow the children to remain in the homosexuals’ custody. The stance taken up by the Christian Coalition and the Liberty Counsel is also a little hard to defend, as their phrasing is pretty harsh. After all, who is against “family values issues” which is what the Coalition at least is in support of. Even homosexuals are pro-family in many cases, as long as the term “family” can mean homosexual or heterosexual families. They were actually approaching this issue as if homosexuality were an illness still, as I quote verbatim: that “the 1973 American Psychiatric Association ruling reversing homosexuality as a treatable condition… It appears as if this change occurred solely as a result of behind the scenes, political maneuvering within the APA by a small group of homosexuals.” Have you ever heard of such sore losers? They are attacking a group who was legitimately taken off of the APA's list of disorders simply because they can't stop them from adopting.

Just re-posting developments on the final project with some additional resources!

Someone once said that tolerance of homosexuality was a side effect of modernization and the following examples would lend this statement some credence: England repealed anti-homosexual laws in 1967, France did the same in 1982, the unified Germany did so in 1994; and in the United States, 46 out of 50 states repealed anti-homosexual conduct laws and 36 repealed sodomy laws before the rest were invalidated by the 2003 U.S. Supreme Court decision Lawrence v. Texas. This isn't even the whole of it though; many nations which have retained such negative laws for a lengthy period of time, or even retain them today may in practice be societies that are not oppressive of homosexuality. While this is all true, I think it's definitely possible to look at this with a religious perspective. I will plan on looking at this by seeing which countries have the death penalty for homosexuals or those taking part in homosexual acts, those who give life sentences, and those who just give "large penalties". After some preliminary research, the final breakdown seemed to go along these lines: Those which still had the death penalty for homosexuality/homosexual conduct were Sudan, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Iran, and Afghanistan. Life sentences are still handed out in Uganda, Sierra Leone, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. Uganda is actually still up in the air about a specific homosexuality law but it has been decried by even some religious leaders. Much of Africa 'just' has large penalties for homosexuality: Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, Lesotho, and Namibia are but a few. Syria, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan are a couple others outside of Africa. With that I would like to tie in the religion aspect more closely: The religious breakdown of the countries with severe anti-homosexuality laws were as follows: 70% are Sunni Muslims in Sudan. Virtually all Mauritanians are Sunni Muslims. In Saudi Arabia, 100% of the population is supposed to be Muslim. There is a roughly 50-50 split in Yemen of Shi'a and Sunni Muslims. In Iran, 98% are Muslim with a vast majority of the Shi'a kind. Afghanistan on the other hand is 80% Sunni Muslim while 60% of the population in Sierra Leone is Muslim. Pakistan is also overwhelmingly Muslim with 95% of the population Muslim (75% of which are Sunni). Islam is also the religion of Bangladesh too. Bucking the trend is Uganda which is largely Christian with 42% identifying as Protestants and 41.9% as Catholic. With these statistics, since the majority of nations which react the most harsh to homosexuals have a majority, if not national, religion of Islam, I come to the conclusion that homosexuality is not tolerated at all in most Muslim countries while in "more Christian" countries, or nations with majorities of other faiths, homosexuality is often given some leeway. Thus, in this project I could see the study focusing on those countries, not so much on Christian nation-states, although comparisons could easily be made.
My additional resources include: For the initial list of anti-homosexuality laws, I will use the site http://lgbt.wikia.com/wiki/Homosexuality_laws_of_the_world. For all of the religion percentages found in these countries I will use statistics from the United States Central Intelligence Agency's database on each of the subject countries which begins at https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/. Freedom ratings will be based on data provided by the yearly report from Freedom House "Freedom in the World" found at: http://freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=363&year=2010. Information regarding Uganda's controversial anti-homosexual law will be based from both http://www.time.com/time/ and http://www.guardian.co.uk/.

The Survival of Our Nation's Families and the Threat of Militant Homosexuality. What?!?!

Doing some outside reading of Anita Bryant's experiences from her own perspective in her book The Anita Bryant Story was... Educational shall we say? I now know what it sounds like when someone takes an issue to an extreme, fiery, and religious extent. And it's pretty disturbing! The fact that she made herself and her group, Save Our Children, into the victims of the debate was just pathetic really as she painted pictures of the U.S. falling under the rule of a homosexual fourth Reich. Her fears of gay/lesbian teachers affecting the growth and development of children everywhere are baseless and obviously come from an un-educated, personal disdain which really gives Religion a bad name. The way she groups homosexuals with pornography, abortion, drugs and alcohol is also rude and unjust as homosexuality just isn't up there on the list of arguable sins. The fact that she turns any molehill such as criticism against her or the group into mountains is also wrong as conservatives directed and continue to direct more fire upon pro-homosexual rights groups than vice versa. All in all, her book was just a big publicity stunt which was directed solely at pumping up her own image. For example, how she is made out to be a real crusader who has sacrificed everything she had for this awesome goal. First of all, she was a celebrity. A talented performer, and a homemaker. Those aren't really titles which make me think of someone who is at risk of losing everything. Going back to the group itself, the group's name itself is pretty awful. The fact is, homosexuals aren't a danger to children, so saying in an indirect way that homosexuals are a danger to children is an unfair attack upon the characters of gays and lesbians.

Writing on a position of faith.

In listening and watching this documentary about the placement of an openly homosexual man into the priesthood of the U.C.C., I was first moved by the request from William Johnson's mother and the continued pro-placement argument throughout the clips: that homosexuality should not bar a well qualified person from joining the priest-hood. The argument one speaker makes that Johnson should be removed from his position of priest-hood "because of his disorientation", a phrase which amused me greatly, lost its humor when I found that the man was dead serious. How can someone be so narrow minded? The worries some express about if he were to serve as a councilor at a youth camp also proved to be baseless as statistics I pulled up illustrated to me: sexual misconduct is far more prevalent among HETEROsexuals than HOMOsexuals (including those who identify as heterosexual though commit homosexual acts). The personal testaments that some members gave about how they'd like or not like Johnson as a priest were also very stirring as they went back and forth. The personal discomfort one jerk of a woman told the camera was off-set by the clear head provided by another woman and the cheer that went up when Johnson was voted in as a priest illustrated the clear mind those members voting had: of 96 voters, a strong majority agreed that Johnson should be made a priest, no matter his sexual orientation. And that is following along the lines of the teachings of acceptance of the Lord.