Muslim leaders in Britain have claimed introducing gay marriage would undermine traditional families and take away parents’ and teachers’ rights, A Gay Muslim denies that they are speaking for the Muslim community as a whole.
Imam Suliman
In what British right-wing newspaper The Telegraph calls ‘an unprecedented intervention from the British Muslim community,’ over 500 imams have signed a letter to express ‘serious misgivings’ about Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron’s gay marriage bill.
As a gay Muslim and LGBT rights advocate I have serious concerns about this stance and letter, especially as it is apparently being penned in my name, as a British Muslim.
As far as I am concerned those who oppose equal marriage are homophobes plain and simple for marriage is NOT a religious institution but a civil right.
Muslim opposition claim that this should be seen as a challenge to David Cameron’s claims of acting in the interests of ‘equality’ and ‘diversity’. I question this and the statement that says ‘on behalf of the Muslim communities we serve’ for am I not part of that community of Muslims?
It needs to be pointed out that, like in other religious, an Islamic marriage is only legal when it is signed into contract by law. Thus: ‘Marriage is a sacred contract between a man and a woman’ is only legal when formalized into civil law, so how does same sex marriage disrupt or lessen this ‘sacred contract’.
This ‘radical change’ will actually not change what is taught in Islamic schools and by stating that Muslim teachers will have their religious values compromised is no different to asking for permission to discriminate and special rights to be given to a group.
By those standards they are already being ‘forced into the contradictory position of holding private beliefs’ as they are not allowed to portray homosexuality in a negative light under current hate and discriminatory laws.
The same argument stands for ‘Muslim parents will be robbed of their right to raise their children according to their beliefs, as gay relationships are taught as something normal to their primary-aged children.’
Every parent has the option available to them already, as to where they send their children to be educated as most metropolitan cities have Islamic schools, who can chose to ignore the fact that gay marriages are not abnormal, but a fact of life and that everyone is entitled to equality, in law – as other religious schools can.
We do not live in a country that is dictated by Sharia law or one that is predominately Muslim, but in a multi-cultural, multi-faith country, where democracy and civil law rules.
As I have expressed before the introduction of Sharia law into Britain would put LGBT people’s safety and civil rights at risk.
– full report at Gay Star News.
