Sun Tzu says that the keys to victory lie in knowing yourself and your enemy. When I got to #4, it became obvious that you know very little about Islam. There are no LGBTQ+ safe spaces in Islam. A relevant wikipedia page says “Homosexual acts were forbidden (haram) in traditional Islamic jurisprudence and therefore were subject to punishment. The types of punishment prescribed for non-heterosexual activities include flogging, stoning, and the death penalty, depending on the particular situation and the school of thought.” The major Muslim countries are signatories to a UN counter-statement opposing gay rights. See here for a consensus statement of the Australian National Imam’s Council, whom I would expect to be much more liberal than the average Palestinian, saying, “From the time of the Prophet until now, all scholars of every time and era, have agreed that the practice of homosexuality is a forbidden act and a sin in Islam.” It’s just a complete non-starter.
This hasn’t historically always been the case—there was widespread public acceptance of homosexuality in the first 500 years of Islam’s existence, with homoerotic poetry being a staple of their culture—see e.g. here.
Judaism also unequivocally rejects homosexuality, yet many modern orthodox synagogues happily have openly gay members of their congregation. So this doesn’t seem quite as impossible as you make out.
In 14 centuries of Islamic history from Spain to Indonesia, with limited travel and much regional variation for most of it, there will be many opportunities to find examples that match our own culture’s Current Thing. Some Muslims are hypocrites; some Westerners look for homosexual subtext where none was intended. Many Muslim empires have risen in vigor and fallen in decadence. Still, the orthodox position is clear—homosexuality is both sinful and illegal. I’ve seen a Jew eat pork and laugh it off; it would be a mistake to make pork a key component of an appeal to militant Jews.
More to the point, in this era gay rights are associated with the West at its most liberal, which is exactly what Islamists oppose. Activity that might have been tolerated a thousand years ago is now perceived as a Western obsession and its practitioners as enemy sympathizers.
I guess it would make more sense to try to emulate a more secular country, such as Turkey. A country where individual people can be religious, but the state as a whole is not. A priest can tell you that something is a sin, but cannot organize your murder.
Sun Tzu says that the keys to victory lie in knowing yourself and your enemy. When I got to #4, it became obvious that you know very little about Islam. There are no LGBTQ+ safe spaces in Islam. A relevant wikipedia page says “Homosexual acts were forbidden (haram) in traditional Islamic jurisprudence and therefore were subject to punishment. The types of punishment prescribed for non-heterosexual activities include flogging, stoning, and the death penalty, depending on the particular situation and the school of thought.” The major Muslim countries are signatories to a UN counter-statement opposing gay rights. See here for a consensus statement of the Australian National Imam’s Council, whom I would expect to be much more liberal than the average Palestinian, saying, “From the time of the Prophet until now, all scholars of every time and era, have agreed that the practice of homosexuality is a forbidden act and a sin in Islam.” It’s just a complete non-starter.
This hasn’t historically always been the case—there was widespread public acceptance of homosexuality in the first 500 years of Islam’s existence, with homoerotic poetry being a staple of their culture—see e.g. here.
Judaism also unequivocally rejects homosexuality, yet many modern orthodox synagogues happily have openly gay members of their congregation. So this doesn’t seem quite as impossible as you make out.
In 14 centuries of Islamic history from Spain to Indonesia, with limited travel and much regional variation for most of it, there will be many opportunities to find examples that match our own culture’s Current Thing. Some Muslims are hypocrites; some Westerners look for homosexual subtext where none was intended. Many Muslim empires have risen in vigor and fallen in decadence. Still, the orthodox position is clear—homosexuality is both sinful and illegal. I’ve seen a Jew eat pork and laugh it off; it would be a mistake to make pork a key component of an appeal to militant Jews.
More to the point, in this era gay rights are associated with the West at its most liberal, which is exactly what Islamists oppose. Activity that might have been tolerated a thousand years ago is now perceived as a Western obsession and its practitioners as enemy sympathizers.
I guess it would make more sense to try to emulate a more secular country, such as Turkey. A country where individual people can be religious, but the state as a whole is not. A priest can tell you that something is a sin, but cannot organize your murder.