LGBT News America's Queer Muslims & Orlando Shooting

I'm not going to start ranting on how I feel about religion and what it causes, I'd probably violate multiple policies and I finally found a place to do that anyway.

Onto the point however, I'd just encourage everyone to view the text itself and the actions of followers in a critical light. To sit down and think "Does this define me?"
For example, the Biblical belief of subjugating to a man couldn't be further from my forte and I'm against a noteworthy portion due to harm it causes and better proven scientific alternatives. I'd also rather not be traded as a sex slave in exchange for a goat, yeah, not a book I'd say to act on for your source of morality. Heard about an 8 year old child who recently had that happen to her in one of those countries... If it's restrictive you and your orientation it likely doesn't define you.

That's just me anyway. I understand I'm a minority of a minority. The least I can do is encourage reading and critical thinking, it woke me up eventually. Back when I was religious it was hard for me to hear a lot of the things I say today, but it still helped me in the long run.

Strayed a bit, I'll note. Way to ruin a thread, Kira.

 

I didn't want to comment on this thread either because I know pretty much all of my views are already fairly controversial, but since Kira did I'll add some of my own words into the mix:

I do not support religion but I support people to follow whatever religion they want to believe in. However, don't expect me to say "Islam is awesome!" or that "Islam isn't any worse than Christianity." Sorry, but neither of those statements are true, at least from my perspective. Islam, compared to Christianity, is somewhat new so of course it's expected that followers might be more radical to make up for that, but I disagree with people that Islam will just eventually "calm down". The world just doesn't work that way. People are pacifists because they were taught either early on or later in their life that violence isn't the answer- a notion that most Islamic groups reject. Of course not all Muslims are violent, but that's not my point. My point is that it takes a LONG time to un-radicalize already radical nations, and I just don't see that happening in our lifetime. You may or may not disagree with me, but I'd like to offer up the fact Christianity up until the last few centuries was fairly radical as proof. Heck, Christianity still struggles with homosexuality, so it should be no wonder Islam will have those issues too! Still, I don't want to say Christians are more civilized than Muslims now, or any large generalization like that, but I do want to reiterate my point that Islam probably won't be un-radicalized in the near future, and anyone who calls themselves a Muslim should expect the idea of what the vast majority of Muslims are doing or supporting to jump into the heads of those who hear it. Labels are POWERFUL, and while you shouldn't feel pressured to put a label on you or take one off, you should think about what harm a label might potentially bring to you, because let's face it, it's a dangerous world out there! My mother actually calls herself a "Christ lover" instead of a Christian now, because she feels like the word Christian has been tarnished by the bigoted gay and transgender haters who use that word to justify their cause. I support women's rights, but by no means am I a feminist- maybe a traditional feminist, but the third-wave feminism I've seen today is absolutely disgusting to me. So yeah, I wish the best of luck to any Muslims on this site who deal with this everyday, and while I don't by any means support your religion, I do support your right to believe in it as long as you don't try to bring harm to me, a transgender bisexual Atheist without a very loud mouth. XD

 

she's in a religion that wants to kill people like her :eusa_clap:eusa_clap:eusa_clap

this sums it up for me [YOUTUBE]2s70h90LGYM[/YOUTUBE]

 

I think we should just support our Muslim LGBT brothers and sisters. Islamophobia should have no place in our community. I know religion has been unkind to us at times but there are LGBT people of faith who do need support. Muslims are already facing terrible discrimination. If you add in homophobia from some members of their religion or from society as a whole, LGBT Muslims are pretty much screwed. I can see why these people would feel isolated and scared. I'm not religious but I figured I'd comment anyway, sorry.

LGBT Muslims are told it’s their religion’s fault that 49 people died and they’re also terrified because 49 people died for being LGBT. This means they can be attacked for being both Muslim and LGBT. That’s a scary place to be.

A note: Islam is not a religion of violence. I’m not educated enough on the religion to actually say much more about it but I do know good Muslim people would never believe in the ideas of “radical Islam”. My sister has Muslim friends and they’re all really nice guys. I have taken a class on Islam and radical people have taken the word of Allah and twisted it to something dirty. Most Christians aren’t like Westboro Baptist Church either.

 

No religion is a religion of violence. But any one person can interpret it differently making it seem to others that the religion they follow can preach and teach violence. That is the unfortunate truth.

 

Blame a person and not a religion for their actions..
In Christianity they talk about slavory being a good thing but we no longer do it..
Muslims are improving on a whole but it doesn't help having a bunch of fuckasses killing for a false ideal..
Blame terrorists and not the religion..
Prosecute terrorists and not the religion..

I don't think Christianity or Islam will ever be fine with LGBT+ people

I'm rambling so I should probably stop..

 

There is no such thing as a "religion of violence" or a "religion of peace". Religions are only as peaceful or violent as the people who follow them. Most religions preach peace as well as justifiable violence. Islamic terrorists believe the violence they commit falls under the umbrella of "justifiable violence". Most Muslims would disagree with that, just as most modern Christians would not agree that the Crusades were justifiable violence if they were truly offensive and not defensive, as some Crusaders at the time and some modern-day right wing apologists claim. By this logic, however, Christianity was once a "religion of violence": aggressive holy war was waged and justified with the Bible (with lines like "put on the armor of God" being used to justify the Crusades), violent Inquisitions were carried out against non-Christians and heretics, etc. The difference is that this is long-past history. There's no denying that in today's world, there is more violence carried out in the name of Islam than any other religion. But that doesn't mean that the religion at its core is fundamentally violent nor does it mean that all Muslims are culpable, as some of our demagogues may suggest.

Furthermore, the Bible is more explicitly anti-gay than the Qur'an is. The Qur'an only refers to "lewdness" and the "sin of Lot" a few times, none of which are explicitly condemnatory and violent as "homosexuals are to be put to death" (paraphrasing Leviticus 20:13). Yet despite this, Muslim countries tend to be much more opposed to homosexuality than Christian ones. This shows you the extent to which this is cultural and not religious.

OT: I cannot imagine how difficult it must be to be an LGBT Muslim. I would not wish it on myself. Omar Mateen is perhaps an extreme example of what happens to people who fail to attempt to balance the two aspects of their nature.

 

I both agree with him and what I just said. Personally, my stance is that Islam is a horrible religion, but again, as long as you yourself aren't horrible I support your right to practice that religion. Still, no religion is free from criticism and that includes Islam. I will continue to criticize Islam as a whole for its horrid teachings.

Well, when people tell Muslims that it's their religion's fault people are dying, that isn't false. :/ Islam IS a religion of violence- have the read the Quran OR the Haddeith? (not sure if I spelled it right but I have read all of them.) Sorry, but you're basing an entire religion off of your sister's friends and a class you took, which just isn't intellectually honest. The holy text of Christian's isn't much better, but the holy books of Islam all promote violence for things that would be considered very minor offenses today, and of course not all religions can be accurately represented by their holy text, but I'd say they can be represented by their people, who are overwhelmingly violent or in support of violence. Now, the Muslims who grew up in our society obviously weren't taught as strictly, so it makes sense they're less violent, but I believe any movement is represented by its people, and the majority of Muslims have proven to be in support of violence at the very least. When people say "Islam is a religion of peace", they are speaking for the small minority of Muslims. Take ten people from any Muslim country, and 9 of them will be in support of several forms of violence that are deemed unacceptable by any advanced nation. Not only that, but 8 of those 9 will be too stubborn to change their mind. It's sad, but I just don't think we can call Islam a religion of peace when the majority of its followers ARE violent. Islam isn't like Christianity will a small minority of people are violent today- it's the peaceful people that are a small minority in Islam.

Now, should we show love to LGBT+ Muslims in the US? Of course, but there is a limit to that. If you hold a viewpoint I strongly disagree with, I reserve the right to dislike you and stay away from you, regardless of if you're a minority or not, and honestly, I don't think I could be friends with anyone who strictly followed Islamic teachings- they'd just have to be way too conservative and bigoted to do that, and I wouldn't be comfortable being around them. :/

This would be a great video for you to check out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SltxWvgBVPU

 

Yikes. I think this discussion should be less about how much we disagree/agree with Islam's views and more on how Muslim LGBT people deserve our support and love. I also don't condone discrimination or prejudice against Muslim people as a whole. If we don't want to be discriminated against we can't be hypocritical. The LGBT community can't sit around and let there be a place for Islamophobia. To be honest, who cares if I agree or disagree with their views. Most Muslims aren't killing us and most of them aren't violent at all on a personal level.

LGBT Muslims need our support, point blank. They don't need to see anti-Muslim rhetoric on emptyclosets by the way. This is supposed to be a safe space for everyone. For LGBT minorities to see people hate on them in a safe space like emptyclosets is even worse than out in public.

I want to see LGBT groups embracing LGBT people of faith. They are one of us.

---------- Post added 9th Aug 2016 at 07:36 PM ----------

Also isn't this about people who are feeling scared because both of their identities are being attacked after Orlando? The Orlando guy wasn't a normal Muslim. He was a crazy homophobic man who added to the hatred that people already have for the normal nice Muslim people. "All Muslims should be banned" I can't imagine being LGBT and Muslim seeing things like that and seeing your LGBT people die.

 

yes religion may or may not be violent.

but something truly good and peaceful could never be interpreted in such a horrible way.

the awful thing is, whilst there are parts of religious books like the quran and bible that can be interpreted in either way, there are parts that can only be interpreted in a violent way.

can religions that say you will go to hell if you do not believe or should be killed for being gay be peaceful?

 

The thing is, yes there are parts of religious books that can be interpreted as violent. However the majority of religious people don't believe in that violence. The facts are that most Muslim people in the world are not violent. The people who follow the religion are different from the actual book. Muslim people are not bad. Some words of the Quran may be "bad" but Muslim people, the majority of them, are not bad. There are homophobic Muslims but there are also homophobic Christians and homophobic Atheists. The words of a book don't make the people bad and it's important that the LGBT community doesn't contribute to Islamophobia. (I'm not singling you out, there are others on this thread who have said things against Islam without pointing out that Muslims can be good people and people in society are constantly putting down Muslims). Christians have privilege because if the LGBT community criticizes their religion and people they aren't in any danger but if the LGBT community criticizes Islam it contributes to their oppressed status due to discrimination in the United States and European countries.

I grew up during the time of 9/11. My teacher looked at Muslims (innocent ones on the street) and called them terrorists. It's not going to hurt Christians to say bad things about the Bible and about Christians although there are many good Christians too. It does hurt Muslims though. Mosques are being burnt, people are being beaten up, there is destruction of property, people are yelled at with slurs, and etc. Hate crimes are going up. Therefore it's important to not contribute to any kind of anger that people already have toward Islam in my opinion. It's sort of like hating on gay people. Yeah there are some really bad gay people I'm sure but if we focus on the bad gay people it's only going to contribute to the hate we already deal with.

 

Thank you. I imagine some members might be deterred from the site, specifically because of such opinions posted.

 

Extra edit: this is just my opinion. i would hate to force someone away just because of their religion, of course they have the right to believe in what they want to. i would never be horrible or hate someone just for their religion

I'm not insulting the people I'm insulting the religion. I'm not saying that religious people are bad I'm saying the religions and beliefs they follow are

the quran is pretty much 'the rule book' for the religion of islam. you cant cherry pick the verses that are nice and ignore the ones that aren't. you aren't a person of that religion or any religion if you don't follow all of what it teaches. you believe things different to how the quran teaches

I don't see how saying Islam is homophobic means everyone who isn't a Muslim isn't homophobic.the words of a book make the religion bad. Criticizing Islam doesn't make me islamophobic. Also me criticizing Islam isn't the same as me saying every Muslim is a bad person and i am not trying to oppress people, its my opinion, its not the same as advocating hate or violence against Muslims and I would not want that.

i do not condone any acts of violence against Muslims, that is never the right thing to do. your teacher calling every muslim a terrorist is islamophobic, not me criticizing the religion.

Extra edit: this is just my opinion. i would hate to force someone away just because of their religion, of course they have the right to believe in what they want to

 

I apologize if you thought I was only directing my post toward you. I was trying to just make a general statement toward the whole thread and toward the entire LGBT community, not toward you personally.

 

oh sorry XD. its because you quoted me

 

Although mainstream Christianity and mainstream Islam are probably similar, there is one big difference between the extreme fundamentalist elements of both religions. I was raised in a fundamentalist Christian home, was expected to get married young and have children. My father had the final say on who I was to marry and procreate with. My Muslim friend was also expected to do the same thing. When I left home and came out, I was shunned, disowned. If my Muslim friend would've done that, her father would've had her killed. It doesn't matter that this is the US and someone might've gone to prison or faced the death penalty if they'd been caught.







The Horror of Honor Killing: In America and Around the World

 

I think Christianity and Islam are the same. Both hurt people.

 

Bad people do bad things. They use different excuses to "justify" what they do. But frankly they're just people who want to hurt people.

It destroys me to see so much hate for the muslim community, both lgbt and not. I've never met a muslim person who was not kind to me, despite me being queer. My best friend in previous years (who to my regret I drifted apart from) is a muslim, and she taught me a lot about her beliefs. I admire her dedication to her religion and frankly I think overall it's a beautiful religion.

Is religion a pain in the neck? Sometimes it is. Yeah.

But frankly without my faith I would feel despaired. And many others would too.


Oh, I'd like to add, a while back I saw a photo of muslims using themselves as a shield around christians so that they could pray in peace, and a photo of christians doing the same for muslims. The world isn't so bad guys. It really isn't.

 

People just love to feed off negativity.