Imams help gay Muslims embrace new social identities

[junaid]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10480987

Mr Qureshi said he was aware of couples who had opted for such nikkahs but stressed that these were performed by imams in absolute secrecy.

http://middeno.wordpress.com/2009/09/01 ... realities/

My friend Ali recently went to Jordan to be wedded to his boyfriend by a Muslim cleric and then spent his honeymoon in Damascus....

[ootii]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10480987

Mr Qureshi said he was aware of couples who had opted for such nikkahs but stressed that these were performed by imams in absolute secrecy.

http://middeno.wordpress.com/2009/09/01 ... realities/

My friend Ali recently went to Jordan to be wedded to his boyfriend by a Muslim cleric and then spent his honeymoon in Damascus....

There is a fascinating observation in the NYT article linked to one of your sources above:

“What’s interesting is that the Arab areas that were once controlled by the French, like Lebanon, are the ones with laws against homosexuality, because the French felt comfortable talking about sex,” Mr. Luongo said, “while the areas controlled by the British didn’t have those laws because they didn’t talk about sex. As a result, flowing from that French history is a relative familiarity with homosexuality in places like Lebanon. You have more gay life where the laws exist against it.”

http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/08/02/tr ... 1&emc=eta1

Salaam,

Omar

[Jamal]

It's my impression that marriage in Muslim areas as a state institution is not as rigorous as it is in America. If your church or your mosque wants to marry you, it's not so much an issue unless the state has actual laws banning homosexuality. Of course there is the issue of legal rights like inheritance and child custody where the state often gets involved. However, these things seem endemically bureaucratic to Western civilization. It may work much better for the state to not even recognize marriage and let individual churches, mosques, etc be the ones who decide.

Does the rule of Britain and France really hold?

The Arab counties I can think of off the top of my head are:

1. Egypt - Britain - no laws
2. Iraq - Britain - no laws
3. Lebanon - France - illegal
4. Jordan - Britain - now laws.

Wasn't homosexuality banned in Britain itself for a while?

[ootii]

It's my impression that marriage in Muslim areas as a state institution is not as rigorous as it is in America. If your church or your mosque wants to marry you, it's not so much an issue unless the state has actual laws banning homosexuality. Of course there is the issue of legal rights like inheritance and child custody where the state often gets involved. However, these things seem endemically bureaucratic to Western civilization. It may work much better for the state to not even recognize marriage and let individual churches, mosques, etc be the ones who decide.

Does the rule of Britain and France really hold?

The Arab counties I can think of off the top of my head are:

1. Egypt - Britain - no laws
2. Iraq - Britain - no laws
3. Lebanon - France - illegal
4. Jordan - Britain - now laws.

Wasn't homosexuality banned in Britain itself for a while?

If same sex marriages are claimed by Muslims, then challenges to inheritance rules will follow. I can imagine that this is where major difficulties will be encountered.

Sodomy was illegal in Britain until very recently and the laws may still be on the books. 18th and 19th century court records from the Old Bailey are available on line and you can find a number of cases described there in which men were executed following convictions on charges of public exposure or suspicion of procurement. Homosexuality did not seem to form a legal or conceptual category at the time.

Oddly, from these records, it appears that (heterosexual) rape was not only common but was also not taken particularly seriously by the courts. Most cases were acquitted. An accusation of homosexual rape, however, almost always ended in conviction regardless of the quality of the evidence or witnesses. Acquittal or conviction in both cases, however, did seem to depend a lot on personal reputation and social standing.

Salaam,

Omar

[grahame]

It's my impression that marriage in Muslim areas as a state institution is not as rigorous as it is in America. If your church or your mosque wants to marry you, it's not so much an issue unless the state has actual laws banning homosexuality. Of course there is the issue of legal rights like inheritance and child custody where the state often gets involved. However, these things seem endemically bureaucratic to Western civilization. It may work much better for the state to not even recognize marriage and let individual churches, mosques, etc be the ones who decide.

Does the rule of Britain and France really hold?

The Arab counties I can think of off the top of my head are:

1. Egypt - Britain - no laws
2. Iraq - Britain - no laws
3. Lebanon - France - illegal
4. Jordan - Britain - now laws.

Wasn't homosexuality banned in Britain itself for a while?

The trouble is I think, is that marriage does touch the civil laws as well especially when marriages go wrong. I think because of this that it needs to be recognised by the state as well. Unfortunately although many of us may agree with separation of church and state and religion and state me included, the problem is that they are both intermeshed because people who are religious and belong to Mosques and churches or whatever are also citizens of the state as well and being citizens also have a say in the way the country is run.