A Gay Son’s Difficult Relationship with His Devout Pakistani Muslim Father

Oct 13, 2017 Filmmaker Arshad Khan talks about the challenges of migration and especially of coming out to his devout father. Logic and religion can seem like they're at war, says Khan, whose new film is called Abu.

Can You Be Gay & Muslim?

Like with any religion, the answer to homosexuality is complicated, but it doesn’t have to be. It’s when religion is taken to the extreme that issues arise. We take a closer look at what it means to be gay and Muslim.

"Gay and Muslim in America" - Al Jazeera - Edward Wyckoff Williams Reports (2014)

This special report explores the unique challenges facing openly gay, American Muslims—and the double consciousness that comes from being a dual minority.

Our subjects both speak of wanting gay Muslims to galvanize around a progressive agenda that will challenge both their faith community and American neighbors and friends — to see Muslim Americans in their totality: diverse, multi-cultural and multi-contextual.

Imam Jalloh, leader of New York's largest mosque, says the doors to the mosque are always open to everyone -- regardless of sexual orientation. But he struggles to find a balance between the traditional teachings of the faith and lessons of the heart.

Edward Wyckoff Williams reports.

Muslim Drag Queens: Stars of Channel 4 Show Brave Death Threats to Appear in Film

THE INDEPENDENT: 'There is a whole community that is living in Britain which is hidden - now is the time to come out'

“I’m gay, I’m Muslim, I’m a drag queen, I’m British and Pakistani,” said Asif Quraishi, Britain’s first out and proud Muslim drag queen who performs under the glamorous alter ego, Asifa Lahore. “People say these things shouldn’t fit together but hey, here I am.”

Now Quaraishi and his fellow artistes have been promised police protection amid fears that a Channel 4 documentary shining a spotlight on the “hidden” community of gay British Asians could provoke a violent response.

Quraishi, 33, from Southall, West London, performs a provocative act in which he strips off a Burka and has received death threats from fellow Muslims.

The winner of the LGBT award at Attitude magazine’s Pride ceremony, Quraishi estimates that there are 150 drag queens across Britain who, are devout Muslims, like himself.

The documentary, Muslim Drag Queens, broadcast on 24 August, follows three members of a largely clandestine gay Asian community who are challenging taboos within Islam through their embrace of cross-dressing exhibitionism. » | Adam Sherwin | Media Correspondent | Tuesday, August 18, 2015

Documentary: I Am Gay and Muslim (2012)

I Am Gay and Muslim: This documentary focuses on gay rights in the Islamic world. »

BBC3 'Free Speech': 'Can You Be Gay and Muslim?' Maajid Nawaz vs Abdullah al Andalusi

Exclusive: BBC ‘Free Speech’ Show Censors Gay Muslim After ‘Conerns’ from Mosque

BREITBART LONDON: BBC Three's Free Speech programme was broadcast from Birmingham Central Mosque last night, and one of the topics set to be debated was homosexuality and Islam.

But after the "BBC snake ate its own tail" (host Rick Edwards words, not mine) by discussing the necessity of BBC Three for 20 minutes, we were treated to an excellent example of how and why the BBC fails to do its job properly. Sort of like the snake eating its own tail, vomiting it back up, then eating it again.

A short clip was broadcast, featuring Asifa Lahore, Britain's "first and only" gay Muslim drag queen. The topic had "the most comments on the audience questions page", but this was still not enough for the BBC 'Free Speech' programme to force the issue with its venue hosts, the Birmingham Central Mosque.

As the clip ended, host Rick Edwards announced, "We were going to debate that question but today after speaking to the mosque they have expressed deep concerns with having this discussion here... so we'll move on to our next question". Read on and comment » | Raheem Kassam | Thursday, March 13, 2014

Gay Muslims in Turkey: Torn between Religion and Sexuality

MALAY MAIL ONLINE: ISTANBUL, Aug 10 — “When I was a child, I was told that homosexuals would burn in hell,” said Ertugrul, a Muslim fighting for greater freedom for gays in a country where homosexuality remains taboo.

Ertugrul, who did not want to give his last name, is president of the group Muslims and Gays, which he says wants to “break taboos” in Muslim-majority Turkey, where gays are still subject to violence and abuse.

“There are still regions where people kill gays and lesbians to keep the honour of the family intact,” he said.

“For religious clerics, homosexuality is a test. If you succumb to temptation, you will go to hell. If you resist, you will be pardoned and go to heaven,” explained the 39-year-old, a practising Muslim.

Homosexuality and transsexuality are not illegal in Turkey but police regularly swoop — with or without authorisation — on parks, bars or hammams they believe gays frequent to check for prostitution.

People are then taken to police stations where officers check their identities and if they have a criminal record.

Critics say the checks are a way of putting pressure on the gay community. » | AFP | Saturday, August 10, 2013

Homosexual Muslims Saying Farewell to Allah
Watch Journeyman Pictures video: Act of Faith – USA >>>

Obama to Speak at LGBT Rights Dinner
abcNEWS: President Obama will be the keynote speaker at the Human Rights Campaign’s annual dinner on Saturday in Washington, D.C.

“We are honored to share this night with President Obama, who has called upon our nation to embrace LGBT people as brothers and sisters,” The Human Rights Campaign President, Joel Solmonese, said in an announcement today.

The dinner precedes a scheduled march on Washington by the LGBT community to take place on Sunday. The march was largely organized to draw attention to the administration’s lack on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT)” and the Defense of Marriage Act, among other gay rights issues.

Many leaders in the LGBT community are hoping Obama will use the platform as an opportunity to re-establish his position as a “fierce advocate” for gay rights that he solidified on the campaign trail.

White House aides say that the President has not yet written his remarks, and did not give guidance if the President will reveal any new policy.

National Security Jin Jones this weekend said that at the right time the President will deal with these issues, such as DADT – among others.

“The President has an awful lot on his desk. I know this is an issue he intends to take on at the appropriate time,” Jones told CNN.

While the gay community waits for the “appropriate time” after dedicating themselves to Obama’s campaign, discontent has continued to grow in light of the little progress that has been made since Obama took office in January.

Obama’s address on Saturday will be an historic one—as only the second sitting President ever to address a Gay rights organization. President Clinton was the first in 1997. >>> Jake Tapper, Senior White House Correspondent | Monday, October 05, 2009

THE GUARDIAN: Gay Muslims need support: Discrimination based on sexuality is as wrong as that based on religion. The Muslim Council of Great Britain can take a lead >>> Inayat Bunglawala | Monday, October 05, 2009

What's It Like Being a Gay Muslim?
THE GUARDIAN: EastEnders' current romantic storyline featuring a gay Muslim character has caused a stir. But what is it really like to be gay within Britain's Muslim communities?

Pav Akhtar is not usually a fan of soaps. But the 30-year-old local councillor and Unison worker has been paying special attention since EastEnders introduced its first gay Muslim character. Akhtar, the chair of Imaan, an organisation for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Muslims, advised the BBC on the storyline in the hope that the character of Syed Masood would help tackle the double discrimination of homophobia and Islamophobia that many gay Muslims face.

The Muslim theologian Amanullah De Sondy said recently that the vast majority of Muslims were "deeply homophobic", and a survey carried out this summer among British Muslims reported that 0% of those questioned thought homosexuality was "morally acceptable". Yet, so far, the taboo-busting EastEnders storyline has not sparked the expected deluge of complaints – in fact, the soap's first gay Muslim kiss attracted a healthy 7.9 million viewers. But what is it like being gay and Muslim in the UK today? >>> Homa Khaleeli | Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Interview – Parvez Sharma: Jihad for Love

Watch videos: Jihad for Love: Gay Muslims fighting for their rights >>>

The Dawning of a New Dark Age – Paperback (US) Barnes & Noble >>>
The Dawning of a New Dark Age – Hardcover (US) Barnes & Noble >>>

Documentary Explores Gay Muslims’ Lives in ‘Love’
PHILADELPHIA DAILY NEWS: The men and women who tell their stories, sometimes tearfully, in Parvez Sharma's documentary "A Jihad for Love" have one thing in common: They all continue to believe in the tenets of Islam, regardless of having to hide their personal lives or, worse, escape their homelands because their religion considers their way of life a sin sometimes punishable by death.

The film, which was screened during this year's Frameline festival, is often fascinating and provocative, although, as a film, it feels a bit long and somewhat repetitive.

The only mention of homosexuality in the Quran has to do with Sodom and Gomorrah. Other writings known as the Hadith, a kind of Apocrypha of pronouncements said to have come from Muhammad, are cited to enforce the idea that homosexuality is a sin. That said, the official and popular attitudes toward homosexuality vary from country to country in the Islamic world. Turkey, for example, is a largely Islamic country but has no laws outlawing sexual relations between people of the same sex. In Iran and Egypt, homosexuality is specifically outlawed and the punishment can be extreme.

Sharma's film begins with a look at Muhsin Hendricks, an Islamic scholar who fought his homosexual feelings as a young man, married in the hope of sublimating his true nature, and eventually concluded that he had to find a way to live with being both a believer in Islam and a gay man. He believes that since Allah created him as he is, and because scriptural references condemn homosexual rape and not homosexuality per se, he is living a religious life as a gay Muslim. Documentary Explores Gay Muslims' Lives in 'Love' >>> By David Wiegand, San Francisco Chronicle | August 23, 2008

The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback – USA)
The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Hardcover – USA)

Gay Asians ‘Marrying to Conform’
BBC: Asian gays and lesbians in the UK have married people of the opposite sex in a bid to conform to traditional values and beliefs, it has been claimed.

Gay activists said these marriages happened because some members of their community felt homosexuals brought shame on their people.

They said in some cases gay and lesbian people had been beaten and abused.

The BBC has seen hundreds of people advertising on the internet for so-called marriages of convenience.

One of them is 19-year-old Rubina, from south-east England, who placed an advert on an Asian gay website.

She said: "I just want to make life easier, I want to get my family off my back, because they're pressurising me to get married.

"In my culture it's not acceptable to be gay. If I have a marriage of convenience it will give them the illusion that I'm straight and I can carry on with who I want." Gay Asians 'marrying to conform' >>> By Naresh Puri

WATCH BBC VIDEO:
Gay Asians’ Pressure to Marry

GAY RELATED ISSUE:

BBC:
Anti-gay police complaints 'rise'

LISTEN TO BBC AUDIO:
Rise in Anti-Gay Police Attacks

Mark Alexander (Paperback)
Mark Alexander (Hardback)