Marriages of Convenience
That homosexuality is an illegal and (harshly!) punishable act in almost all Muslim-majority countries is an established fact, and a change in legislation anytime in the foreseeable future is as possible as a cow jumping over the moon. But even in countries where homosexuals don’t face the risk of prosecution, the lifestyle in itself is shunned by the community at large, and homosexuals do face the risk of ostracizing or even violence (case in point is Turkey)
I just came across the below video (via TalkIslam) titled “Marriages of Convenience” – basically a union in which gay and lesbian couples agree to marry each other in order to keep up appearances and ensure that they’d have the freedom to be with their desired partner. And “appearances” do carry a lot of weight in our communities.
The quality is a little sketchy, but the topic in itself is rather interesting.
Join the Conversation
Every religion has its claim to a certain set of beliefs. We believe in this, and we don’t believe in that. But where a religion distinguishes itself is in its treatment of those who believe otherwise. It is there that our sense of humanity is put to the test. It’s easy when everybody believes as we believe. Not so easy when some of us disagree. And yet, if we don’t at least try to move toward tolerance, what claim do we really have to the rest of what we happen to believe?
Nissim (“Israeli?”) and Kawthar:
Muslims are not non-Muslims. You seem to have missed this point. Islam forbids various forms of social evil, including drugs, alcohol, gambling, fornication, and homosexuality. In your desires to be like the West, you feel that all Muslims should submit to your desire to be licentious and oppose the Quran and the Sunnah of our Prophet, so that you can feel comfortable. Why do you think the rest of us should follow (or tolerate!) your path, knowing that it is in disobedience to Islam?
Maybe to you ‘religion’ is just a set of fluid guidelines, but to Muslims, Islam is the Word of the Creator, to be obeyed to the best of one’s ability. And for you, Nissim, the Bible is quite explicit
about sodomy! Tolerance? have you heard about the North American Man-Boy Love Association (NAMBLA?) It’s been around for more than 25 years in the US. Are you willing to “tolerate” a man seducing your 7-year-old son?
Ha! I thought not!
Islam has clearly prohibited anal sex (even for heterosexuals), so there is no ‘gray’ area here.
If you want to engage in sexual alliances with other perverts, there are certainly many countries in the world which would make in comfortable for you, but (hopefully) no Muslim country would fall that low!
Anyone who does is beyond the pale of Islam (or Judaism , or Christianity), so why not shed hypocrisy and find another “religion”, one which would accept your ‘values’ and ‘morals’ uncritically; or another country, where the inhabitants are more open to obscenity and immorality.
Why focus on lowering others to your level?
el-Shinqiti, you make some valid points. As you guessed, I was born in Israel, and yes, I am Jewish, and quite proud of that, as you are to be Muslim.
Jews also regard the Torah as the word of God, as the absolute truth. But here’s the thing; there are some parts of the Torah which make no sense, and even the most pious Jews have somehow come to terms with that, and have found ways to avoide those passages.
For example, in the book of Deuteronomy, there is a passage that says that if you marry a woman, and she turns out not to be a virgin, you’re to kill her on her father’s doorstep. To the best of my knowledge, Jews don’t do this, nor do I recall that they ever did. It is in the Torah, but Jews have found a way to avoid having to carry this commandment out. Why? Because killing your wife on her father’s doorstep, even if she is not a virgin, would violate commandments which are far more important than this one, and would violate notions of common sense.
I am not a scholar of Islam, el Shinqiti, and you seem to be one, but I can bet you that there are passages in the Quran which good and pious Muslims have found a way to bypass, because they make little sense, or would do more harm than good.
I think that the Prophet Muhammad once said that if God wanted us all to be the same, He would have created us that way. But He made us different, and therefore wants us to learn to deal with one another, even if we don’t agree with someone else’s beliefs.
I believe that above all, God wants us to make sense of our lives. He did not put us on this good earth to kill one another. He put us here to live; not to kill, and not to die before our time. We can hold on tightly to our beliefs, but at a certain point, we have to come to believe in what makes sense. Some of us can choose to believe that homosexuality is wrong, but what we do about it has to be considered carefully, lest we end up doing something that undermines the legitimacy of our beliefs altogether.