Gay Muslims

The Gay Pride Parade in San Francisco earlier this year included a Muslim float with about 15 gay Muslims walking alongside, largely disguised.

Their participation in the parade is a bit surprising since gay Muslims customarily avoid being outed. Typically, they stay out of view while apparently trying to reinterpret the Koran to indicate that same-sex sex is okay.

Then, there's this report from today's NYTimes:

Ayman, the parade organizer, said his previous life in Jordan was marked by fear. Arrested at 17 after a sexual encounter in a public building, he said the police wrote "manyak," a homosexual slur, into his file. He denied being gay, but the word resurfaced whenever the police stopped him. He worried that one day it would happen around a relative.

He is convinced that a 22-year-old gay friend who died after a fall from an apartment building was the victim of an "honor" killing meant to clean the family's reputation. "I still feel like I'm a Muslim; I don't accept that anyone insults the faith," said Ayman, who avoids attending mosque. "When I read what it says in the Koran, then I fear Judgment Day."

A 26-year-old from Saudi Arabia who took the first name Liam after rejecting his faith said that as a teenager he fought his homosexuality by becoming a religious zealot. He eventually accepted his sexuality while at college in Colorado, but moved to the Bay Area because gay life in the kingdom was too depressing.

But a 39-year-old burly, bearded computer consultant who left Saudi Arabia to live in the United States said the cosmopolitan city of Jidda had a thriving gay underground. In other Arab states, he said, it is rare to find men who are both religious and gay, but the high numbers in Jidda made them relax somewhat. "They don't care about sex and alcohol, but they do avoid pork," he said.

Now, agree or disagree, these paragraphs make four interesting assertions.

1) Males can be victims of honor killings,

2) Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, has a thriving homosexual population,

3) Homosexuality is an antidote to religious zealotry, and

4) San Francisco is a sanctuary city for gay Muslims.

The third point appears to indicate that a tactic to win the war on terrorism would be to promote widespread homosexuality among the Islamofascists. Imagine that.

Companion post at The Jawa Report.