Why is Islam so much against homosexuality?

(In the Name of God, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful)

Hey, hope you've been doing well @czgibson.

format_quote Originally Posted by czgibson

State sanctioned violence against homosexuals is a practice that I am opposed to, just as I am opposed to any form of violence against them.

Death penalty has been called "state sanctioned violence" but I don't agree with the term because the name seems to imply a kind of purging that is evil or in the vein of terror, neither of which is the case in most countries. For example, in the U.S., we have the death penalty for murder or cases of terrorism in some states (though obviously not for homosexuals), and I wouldn't agree to the labeling of the death penalty as "state sanctioned violence."

With that said, in terms of Muslim majority countries, I hope you realize there isn't any discrimination in terms of sexuality because both heterosexuals or homosexuals who engage in illegal sex in those countries are by penal code similarly punished. So, the punishment cannot be said to be discriminatory, though we can of course deliberate over the rightness of said punishments in the penal code as I do later in the post.

State sanctioned violence also legitimises unofficial violence.

I respectfully disagree.

For example, let's say someone in the U.K. X family has a female family member raped. Obviously, there are legal punishments for rape in U.K.; however, the legal punishment for any rape being perpetrated is not invitation for a person of the X clan to then go on to brutalize the perpetrator as a means to exact retribution. If someone interprets a legal penalty for rape in that way, then that interpretation is at fault and not the state. The state is right and completely lawful in establishing penalties it deems fit to advance its aims of justice as it sees fit. So, I'd argue that "state sanctioned violence" doesn't legitimize unofficial violence at all but is a symptom of specific persons' inability to put faith in the wheels of justice to turn properly; impatience or lack of faith if you will is a human imbroglio.

It's far easier to be a member of that crowd throwing stones at bodies of gay people who have recently been thrown off a high building, in the name of someone's version of Islam, when you are aware that several Islamic majority countries enact similar laws in an official manner.

As you, however, acknowledge, the two are not the same. Laws do not equal justification for vigilante justice; vigilante justice happens in every country, whether in Western countries or Eastern countries. There are people also, for example (in the same vein of the earlier example that I've given above), that have killed persons who they found sexually molesting their children, but that does not mean that that is a burden deserved to be carried by people or the state whether as associative guilt or in terms of accountability for having laws against persons who sexually molest children. Penal code's existence is not ever an invitation for anyone to commit extrajudicial violence.

Also, I'd argue that throwing stones at bodies of gay people as you envision (after having died from being thrown off a high-rise) probably has a lot to do with the inbred barbaric and voyeuristic tendencies in man and not anything to do with religion. For example, this ignoble impulse takes today the form of tabloid reading on the Internet with the proverbial "throwing of stones" in the comments' section on public figures and on one another but historically has also included gladiator sports being engaged in for the entertainment of the spectatorial crowds. I doubt this basic base human nature changes because the place or the time or the religion changes. Piety, however, I'd argue and have some cause to believe is better at curbing this base and basic nature of man than anything else that you can presently imagine.

I'd like to know on what grounds you think it preconceived. I've been gathering information during the decade or so I've been interested in Islam and have only recently come to this conclusion.

May I ask why you've recently come to this conclusion? I ask because obviously I think your conclusion is wrong. I think your conclusion has probably been shaped by Daesh, and I do not see why that should be the case. Just as Hitler, who has been unfairly critiqued at times as an atheist, when he was a Christian, does not represent Christianity, so do Daesh not represent Islam. Just as Mao and Stalin do not represent atheism.

I am opposed to violence against gay people. I'm not gay myself, but I can see absolutely no reason for persecuting people who are.

Did you notice something? It is something that I noticed about myself as well. Why do we say "I'm not gay" if we did not pick up some unconscious bias about what being "gay" means in the world? You're an atheist. If you were gay, would it/should it matter for the purposes of your position? It does not. But you still said that "I'm not gay" just as in a previous thread I'd felt compelled to point out something to the effect of "I'm not gay." Why? I think it bespeaks of unconscious biases we do have against gay persons in the world even when we're not gay ourselves because we understand that being gay does mean something sometimes to some people with which we unconsciously or maybe consciously don't want to be associated.

Like you, however, I'd also like to emphasize that I don't agree with any harassment or violence against gay persons and would stand with you on that point.

That said, when it comes to persecution, I believe we'll probably diverge on what persecution details. For example, you may believe not allowing two gay persons to marry when they're presumably not harming anyone else (a matter with which I disagree) is persecution. However, I see that allowance as infringing on the right of the religious clergy to not perform matrimonial ceremonies in which they don't believe due to seeing it as a sacred institution.

My claim is that the Islamic scriptures are a contributary factor in the persecution of gay people around the world.

I'd say that sentence needs amending to say that sometimes Islamic scriptures are somewhat a contributory factor in some types of persecution of gay people in the world.

That being said, I hope you understand that all major religions in the world carry some type of condemnation for sodomy being committed between two males; and even before Islam existed on the scene, Mosaic Law and even Christian Law had already in place condemnation of and penalties for engaging in homosexuality. For example, Puritans in America literally whipped persons for tending towards sodomy even when the act was not committed and had laws prescribing death penalty for sodomy. And condemnation of homosexuals still exists and is thriving in many countries, many of them not Muslim. For example, India considers homosexuality and lesbianism illegal, and Russia forbids promotion of any LGBTQ literature where children can potentially access the material.

Also, I note that virtually all cases of violence against LGBT community have a common denominator, and it isn't any religion but the male gender generally perpetrating the persecution.

Finally, I also think that a majority of times it is not religion that enables persecution of homosexuals but primal fear and ignorance.

We are constantly told that Islam is a religion of peace, but how can that be true for a gay person? Over 4000 people have been executed in Iran since 1979 on charges of committing homosexual acts, because of the Iranian state's version of Islam. How can you claim that Islamic scriptures have nothing to do with this?

Islam is a primordial call to submission to God and in such submission is a means of inducing peace in the heart, and that is true for persons regardless of whether they identify as heterosexual or homosexual. Iran follows a Shia version of Islam. Majority of the people, however, in the world are Sunni, and Pew Forum estimates Sunni population to be 87-90% of all Muslim population whereas Shia pulation is estimated to be 10-13% of the population. I can't really say anything about Iran but I do know that they engage in practices that Sunni populace consider unIslamic and haram (forbidden) such as temporary marriage known as mutah. So, I'm not sure holding Iran as an example works because there are also texts and fatwas (rulings) that emerge from Shia version of Islam with which Muslims have historically disagreed and continue to disagree.

That said, I think your broader question has to do with why should anyone believe Islam is a peaceful religion when shariah's (Islamic law''s) approach towards homosexuals doesn't seem benign. Well, let me give you an analogical example. If you and a man agree to get in a physical fight (please work with me on imagining this scene), but the guy says, "Wait, wait, before we get into a fight. We need some ground rules. You can't hit my face. You can't hit me in the eyes. You can't hit me anywhere in the legs. You can maybe hit me in the stomach but only lightly but not really anywhere else." Then probably the thought process and words out of you are going to be, "So, what's the point of even fighting?" That's what shariah is meant to have happen in terms of implementation of the death penalty for illegal intercourse (whether a homosexual person or heterosexual person commits it) in the broader perspective and has so meant for centuries. For example, the act of requiring 4 witnesses in itself for witnessing penetration in sodomy is such a high burden to meet that I think the point is that it's not really ever supposed to be met. For example, even if two men had their penises out and 4 witnesses saw both of them nude and one with erection facing the anus, the assumption still cannot be that they intended to commit sodomy because the act of penetration is the determiner of the act of sodomy and not anything else. Ejaculation or rubbing of the buttocks still does not merit the punishment. It must literally be penetration and there can be not even 1% doubt about whether the act of penetration in any person's mind of any of the 4 witnesses. And the 4 witnesses must all be sane, all of age, all willing to testify, and exemplary characters in the community that have not been found to have previously done anything that would make their testimony inadmissible (such as fabricating stories previously); if there are less than 4 witnesses, the testimony is not accepted and punishment withheld even if the act of sodomy occurred. Also, if there are less than 4 witnesses willing to testify, the persons making the accusation are punished and not the perpetrators involved in the act of sodomy. Also, if the guilty parties repent before the 4 witnesses testify in court before the judge, the witnesses are encouraged to cover the sin and the judge is also to seek excuses to ward off punishment. Now, the question is why would God have prescribed a harsh penalty if the end result was that it wasn't really supposed to be ever implemented due to the high burden that is required to be met.

Well, let's look at the law in which running a red traffic light means heavy fines. The intent behind the creation of this law is not to actually fine people but to ensure that people are discouraged from running a red traffic light. So, for example, even when I "think" that I won't be caught running a red light at night when there's hardly any traffic and I don't see any police cars, I still don't run the red traffic light because I am conscious of the fact that there's a possibility that a police car might be hidden from my vantage point waiting to sound its siren the second I violate the traffic code and that if I get caught so doing, I'll be subsequently heavily fined. This is incidentally also an example of operant conditioning.

So, the question generally is why do we have laws when the intent behind is not to punish but to deter whether in a theocratic or a secular state. Because our laws are a reflection of our societal values. And shariah's (Islamic law's) purpose is inculcate God-consciousness in a society, not to punish as it's wrongly presumed in Western or Orientalist thought but to use operant conditioning to modulate societal behavior.

Also, I want you to think about the fact that your encouragement of homosexuals living as they want is based on the fact that you don't factor into your consideration the spiritual world and the unseen. So, from a worldly perspective, you may honestly believe that they're harming no one. However, spiritually, the truth is that they're harming themselves and the society around them because each sexual act not confined to marriage is one that increases black dots in their own hearts so that they're deprived of feeling sakina (inner peace), and if enough people engage in these acts without religious others in the wider society trying to prevent them from engaging in this sin through good advice and counsel, then Allah (God) decides to punish the wider society as a collective because we're no longer encouraging people towards what is good and right and opposing incorrect understanding of the matter. While all sins are bad and wrong, and while we all sin as human beings, God is willing to forgive us for all sins (yes, even the person who has engaged in 1 million acts of sodomy in his lifetime) provided that any of us as human beings are willing to ask for divine forgiveness and make efforts towards repentance. However, as a society, by giving persons blanket encouragement to turn away from trying to exert self-control in cases specific to their sexuality, we're actually harming them by closing the doors of repentance for them; current trends of normalization are literally acting as the means to prevent persons from repenting as a person will only feel the need to repent from something that they consider sinful. So, in the vein of compassion, if you are not part of the solution of turning them towards God and God-consciousness, you are part of the wider society working to impair their spiritual judgment. Compassion has its place among human beings, and I would be the first to commend anyone who has compassion for any human being, but compassion can never come at the cost of what is right and true and good. Enslaving oneself to desires of one's genitals is not wisdom even from the worldly perspective; I'm sure you have heard about societal indictments of the man who thinks "with his little head" which is to say that we as human beings do not respect people who think with their genitals. Frankly, we should never leave off thinking with our minds and hearts even when our genitals are involved but I'd add to that line about how we should also feel obliged to include spirituality as a consideration to move towards what is right.

Also, czgibson, I've told this to you before, and I repeat here again, you are basing your judgment of any penalty based on simply the worldly perspective; however, this obviously leaves you great spiritual room to massively err as you're not factoring in the existence of God into the equation of what we should be doing for ourselves and others as persons who are compassionate and merciful for those struggling with their desires whether that be in a homosexual or heterosexual vein.

Also, for how long do we live in this world? 70 years? 80 years? 90? 100 or 110 or a little more if we're fortunate? Then, as souls, we travel to eternity. 10-20 or 30 minutes of sexual enjoyment multiplied however many times sex is had in this world can never equal the actual enjoyment of Paradise. So, why should we encourage believers to sin against God's proscription when exerting self-control will win them bliss in eternity and more importantly permanently God's pleasure. It doesn't make sense.

Also, I'd say that all human knowledge presently available and knowledge attainable in the future can be summed up in a dot such as this "." dot. Our knowledge is limited; our knowledge is necessarily parochial in time and space and hostage to available tools and current understanding, and subject to faultiness, manipulation, or corruption. However, God's knowledge can never be summed up in any dot because it is omniscient, complete and infinite. In addition, God's knowledge is sublime and perfect. Therefore, we can never say that our current logic on any topic is the right logic as we're not privy to all the understandings that leads God to deem something as spiritually harmful and thereby sinful for us.

I have never complained about anything Search does. It was simply an observation.

It doesn't take much in the way of mental gymnastics to follow a simple instruction to kill a homosexual. Even if the killer has interpreted the wider context of the scripture wrongly, the end result is the same.

Say you're in a relationship and you have a very bad boss and a very bad day after you come from work. So that day you're having a conversation with your girlfriend and you say something like, "I just hate him. I wish someone would just kill him. He's a waste of an oxygen space." So, your girlfriend (desiring to please you) then goes and kills your boss expecting you to be pleased. But wait, are you pleased? Or do you think she's a psycho? Here, no reasonable person would assume that you're actually expecting your girlfriend to kill your boss. So, I disagree with you; it does take mental gymnastics because a simple instruction is not that that simple even it is interpreted in such a way by delusional, simplistic, or simple-minded persons. Similarly, the hadith (prophetic tradition) you presented earlier in the post about active and passive participants in homosexuality also has a context, and the context is specific to judges or positions of authority who are able to make that judgment in Islamic law after due process of a trial at the stage of sentencing; no reasonable person would assume that that is an actual instruction to kill for just any Muslim Tom, Dick, or Harry.

I thought you knew my quarrel is with Islam, not with Muslims.

I'd like to actually challenge you intellectually on this matter because I want you to think about this more deeply. While I agree with you that ideas and people are distinct and require different treatment, I also see a potential problem with this type of simplistic thinking. Because I think it's more complicated than simply saying that you think that Islam is "false" and "dangerous" but simultaneously "[h]atred for Muslims" is a bad, wrong, and maybe an undeserved thing. The reason I say this is because we're voluntarily identifying ourselves as a Muslim, which is a consequential choice to endorse also the defining ideas, values, politics and actions that are inherent to the founding documents of Islam. Since "Muslim-ness" is a trait that's not biological and entirely a distinct matter of choice and entails actions that impact individuals, society, and the globe, you're literally ceding room for Islamophobes to engage in demonization and punditry and then also inviting others similar-minded to have a "quarrel" with Muslims and [h]atred for Muslims." That is because our allegiance to Islam will not be interpreted in a vacuum and so in an anti-Islam environment our "Muslim-ness" will also be seen an overt hostile act that merits evaluation and subsequent devaluation. Add to that the misinformation that exists currently about Islam, war propaganda for involvement in Middle Eastern countries, and bombardment of negative media coverage (of various instances of criminal behavior in Muslim communities or terrorist organizations) even on slow news days, I'd say you're actually literally at that point making an argument for a clash of civilizations and the solution, whether you perceive this as such or not or agree with the perception or not, will be seen as erasure of Muslim identity which I already see happening in Western Europe in present-day. Also, this perception lends itself into the rightness of making inroads into generally making it impossible for Muslims to ever politically have power in any region of the world and annihilation of Muslims across the globe, as that's what will be seen as best action to undertake to stop a "false" and "dangerous" religion and its perceived ignoble adherents.

Far more dangerous and blameworthy than what, exactly?

If you think secularism or democracy will protect Muslims in Western Europe, you're wrong. I have always believed and said that "perception is king" because perception is a value judgment that does not take into account its own rightness or wrongness. The prescription, for a "false" and "dangerous" religion as you now consider Islam to be, will never be to let Muslims simply be. It is in fact impossible within the parameters of even reasoned perception because a "false" and "dangerous" thing must always be opposed, and since ideas cannot be killed, Muslims will be; and even if they're not, they will become this idea's victims in other ways.

Finally, I wanted to say one more thing, and please bear with me when I say this as I don't say this in any bad way: You're wrong about Islam being "false" and "dangerous." I know you've spent 11 years on this board and so I know you think you're right to reach this conclusion or make this evaluation, but two things: #1: God does exist. I need you to keep trying to find God because denying existence of the divine does not make God to objectively not exist. #2 At this point in time, the only religion capable of spiritually opposing immorality and amorality and satanic influences is Islam, which is why you're going to be seeing tumult in the world heading towards Muslims at breakneck speed because Iblees (Satan) is real and the only thing standing now between him and further enslaving of human beings to their desires and the world in preparation of emergence of Dajjal (Anti-Christ) is Islam. Judaism and Christianity have long knelt and bowed down to secularism; Islam doesn't have the instrument of doing so because the Qur'an is literally memorized by millions of Muslims across the globe and is literally the immutable perfect Word of God; even if all the physical copies of the Qur'an were thrown in the sea right now and all Qur'an sites deleted from the Internet, Muslims would still be able to produce the same Qur'an over and over again; this miracle ensures that Muslims cannot change Islam.

Even as an atheist, you'll not escape feeling the reverberations of all said tumult and darkness and negative cultural levers gaining wider purchase in the world; and yet you'll see Islam withstanding the winds of tumult and darkness and negative cultural levers again and again. Because Islam's survivalist tendencies have roots in the supernatural/unseen dimension.

Peace

Wishing you peace as well, and chocolates (because sharing is caring and you're welcome to some of my Cadbury eclairs),

P.S. I know I've written a lot (just as I usually do), but you should be used to me doing so by now, and most importantly your post deserved a proper response (though I do apologize for both my verbosity and repetition).

Greetings, Search,

Again, I am not sure where you are going with this because if you're talking about Islamic texts describing punishments for sodomy, I will not deny that that has to do with Islam.

Wonderful. That's half of my argument conceded right there.

However, if you tell me that people today are committing acts of violence against homosexuals because of Islam, I will disagree with you on that.

There are countless examples. Here's one:

Here is a Saudi government official referring to the 2010 case of a man who had appeared in a gay video online: "The District Court sentenced the accused in a homosexuality case that was referred to it by the CPVPV (the Hai’a) in Jeddah before he was tried for impersonating a security man and behaving shamefully and with conduct violating the Islamic teachings." The man was fined, imprisoned and given 500 lashes.

I wouldn't agree to the labeling of the death penalty as "state sanctioned violence."

What could be more violent than executing somebody? It's a perfectly appropriate label.

Penal code's existence is not ever an invitation for anyone to commit extrajudicial violence.

But people often do decide to take the law into their own hands, and if there is a law on the statute book that feeds their prejudices, it is more likely that they will do so. The fact that they are wrong to do so is irrelevant. The end result is the same.

May I ask why you've recently come to this conclusion? I ask because obviously I think your conclusion is wrong. I think your conclusion has probably been shaped by Daesh, and I do not see why that should be the case.

Daesh is definitely not the only reason. I'm reluctant to answer this because of the particularly heavy-handed censorship that's been occurring around here lately. Perhaps a PM?

If you were gay, would it/should it matter for the purposes of your position? It does not.

You are right. I only mentioned it because in previous forum discussions about this I've been attacked with homophobic language by people who assumed I was gay.

Like you, however, I'd also like to emphasize that I don't agree with any harassment or violence against gay persons and would stand with you on that point.

Why do you support the death penalty for homosexuals then?

I'd say that sentence needs amending to say that sometimes Islamic scriptures are somewhat a contributory factor in some types of persecution of gay people in the world.

And that's the other half of my argument pretty much conceded as well. Marvellous.

That being said, I hope you understand that all major religions in the world carry some type of condemnation for sodomy being committed between two males;

Yes: add that to the large list of reasons why I am opposed to them all.

Also, I note that virtually all cases of violence against LGBT community have a common denominator, and it isn't any religion but the male gender generally perpetrating the persecution.

That is sadly true. It's also usually true of violent crime generally. With deep shame, I apologise on behalf of men everywhere.

Also, czgibson, I've told this to you before, and I repeat here again, you are basing your judgment of any penalty based on simply the worldly perspective; however, this obviously leaves you great spiritual room to massively err as you're not factoring in the existence of God into the equation of what we should be doing for ourselves and others as persons who are compassionate and merciful for those struggling with their desires whether that be in a homosexual or heterosexual vein.

So, because of certain supernatural beliefs that you adhere to, you are content to see people killed because of their sexual behaviour. If you can't see how dangerous that is, then I'm not sure there's much point continuing this discussion.

I'd like to actually challenge you intellectually on this matter because I want you to think about this more deeply. While I agree with you that ideas and people are distinct and require different treatment, I also see a potential problem with this type of simplistic thinking. Because I think it's more complicated than simply saying that you think that Islam is "false" and "dangerous" but simultaneously "[h]atred for Muslims" is a bad, wrong, and maybe an undeserved thing.

So, whenever I criticise the behaviour of certain Muslims, I'm told that that has nothing to do with Islam, because Islam and Muslims are different; yet when I criticise the ideas of Islam, I am assumed to be attacking Muslims. What a convenient double standard.

If you think secularism or democracy will protect Muslims in Western Europe, you're wrong. I have always believed and said that "perception is king" because perception is a value judgment that does not take into account its own rightness or wrongness. The prescription, for a "false" and "dangerous" religion as you now consider Islam to be, will never be to let Muslims simply be. It is in fact impossible within the parameters of even reasoned perception because a "false" and "dangerous" thing must always be opposed, and since ideas cannot be killed, Muslims will be; and even if they're not, they will become this idea's victims in other ways.

Ideas don't need to be killed when they can be debated in a free society, and they stand or fall on their own merits. Holocaust denial is also false and dangerous, but it's definitely a view that should be available for debate, with no need for violence whatsoever.

I don't see why Muslims can't be allowed to believe what they like in a secular society. As long as they don't expect non-Muslims to follow Muslim rules, and as long as they don't break the law of the land, then what is the problem?

I know I've written a lot (just as I usually do), but you should be used to me doing so by now, and most importantly your post deserved a proper response (though I do apologize for both my verbosity and repetition).

Yes I'm used to your massive posts, and although I disagree with you on several things, I have never doubted your awesomeness.

Peace

format_quote Originally Posted by Born_Believer

Do you know if Islam is more or less against homosexuality than against theft, or murder, or fraud etc? Homosexuality is a crime and I highly doubt the Quran and any hadith mention it more so than other crimes. Could you fill me in on that?

In the Hadeeth, Rasoolullaah صلى الله عليه وسلم has cursed sodomites, whereas he has not cursed those who steal or commit fraud.

I want to be an apple. Can I go to the doctor and get a surgery that makes me to a human apple? Please!! I really want to be an apple!! a flying apple!! I feel the need to.. I love apples.

Don't judge me, I want to be an apple that can fly. Impossible? am I crazy? Who are you to judge me! Apple-phobic! I was born with the desire to be a flying Apple!

Allahu alam.