Homophobia isn’t the exclusive preserve of any religion

Reviews: Gay Muslims Channel 4

Homophobia isn’t the exclusive preserve of any religion

THE EXPERIENCE of British gay and lesbian Muslims was the subject for
the Channel 4 documentary Gay Muslims. One of the aims of the programme
was to illustrate the diversity within Islam and how different Muslim
communities deal with homosexuality.

Marc Vallée, Socialist Party national LGBT
group convenor

There has been a huge increase in anti-Muslim prejudice and
discrimination for the two million Muslims in Britain over the last
decade and particularly since 9/11. Working-class Muslims are one of the
poorest sections of British society. In 1999, 28% of white families
lived below the poverty line compared with 41% of Afro-Caribbean and 84%
of Bangladeshi families.

At the beginning of this year on Radio 4’s PM programme, Sir Iqbal
Sacranie, leader of the Muslim Council of Britain, said that
homosexuality was "harmful" and "not acceptable." He also suggested it
was immoral and spread disease. Implying that being gay is a sickness,
he said homosexuality is linked to "other illnesses and diseases". He is
in the same homophobic company as many leading figures from other
religious groups. As Sir Iqbal said, "It [homosexuality] is something
which is not acceptable in Islam the same way it is not acceptable under
Christianity or Judaism or other divine religion".

Peter Tatchell of the gay human rights group OutRage! has correctly
challenged this type of homophobia, at times in a crude way, but has
been condemned by some on the Left for being Islamaphobic. Tatchell’s
and OutRage’s record of taking on homophobia in other religions
including the Vatican and the General Synod of the Church of England
clearly shows that this is unfounded.

At the beginning of the programme, to a sinister soundtrack, the
presenter Sonia Deol says: "Islam is fierce in its condemnation of
homosexuality". But homophobia is in no way exclusive to Islam. The
homophobia of right-wing Christians in the Bush White House and the bile
that comes from the new Pope is just as unacceptable and is used in the
same way by capitalism to prop up a system which promotes the interests
of a super-rich elite at the expense of all workers whether religious or
not.

Around 200 lesbian and gay Muslims were contacted by the programme
makers but only a handful were willing to be interviewed. Only one,
Adnan Ali, an LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) Muslim
activist, was prepared to show his face on camera and give his true
name. He described how when he first came out in Pakistan he was
physically and verbally abused.

In the present climate, a programme about gay Muslims should attract
attention and debate. Unfortunately, it restricted itself to showing its
participants living passively in the face of oppression.

The human interest style of the programme relied on artificial set
pieces. At one point the makers arranged a consultation with an Imam to
(purportedly) help a gay man establish contact with his children, denied
to him by his wife since he came out.

This became a confrontation, with the cleric condemning
homosexuality, as he was clearly expected to do by the programme makers.
Almost the only interesting idea offered was when a member of Imaan, a
UK Muslims’ LGBT group, disagreed with the concept of gay pride, which
she felt to be by its very nature immodest and therefore un-Islamic. As
a muslim she also condemned the perceived hedonism of LGBT culture. What
could have been an interesting debate was swiftly glossed over.
Presumably Channel 4 don’t think viewers are ready to digest
intellectual solids. Imaan have publicly condemned the programme as
casting gay Muslims in a "negative and inaccurate light" and as
"wretched and weak".

Reflecting the wider LGBT community, LGBT Muslims in Britain are not
one homogenous block. Factors such as class and gender divide LGBT
people, although you wouldn’t know it from this documentary.

The Socialist Party believes that prejudice is an intrinsic part of
the capitalist system. Capitalism’s ideology is advanced to justify the
privileged existence of an elite at the expense of the majority and
thrives on the inequalities that it creates in society.

A socialist society would end discrimination regardless of sex,
sexual orientation, and personal faith and allow people the right to
determine how they lived their own personal lives. It would promote
personal expression and allow prejudice and repression to be ended for
all. It would also produce better television programmes than this, not
insult the intelligence of its audience.


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