QUEER AND MUSLIM?

[VOICES] Abdul Rohman, faculty at the Indonesian Islamic University talks about faith and sexual orientation in The Jakarta Post.



Here is a take-out of the full article from the 12 December 2011 article in The Jakarta Post.

"Insisting that same-sex relations are actually compatible with religious beliefs would almost certainly challenge mainstream perspectives.

Within the context of Indonesia, as the country with the largest Islamic population, you cannot be a gay or lesbian, for example, and a good Muslim at the same time because most Islamic teaching bans same-sex practices.

I do not attempt to justify homosexuality or promote gay culture but I call for a dialogue on religions and sexual preferences.

Sexual identity and religion are sensitive and contradictory issues in Indonesia. Only a few are willing to discuss them open-mindedly. Most are likely to say that having a different sexual preference is a perversion of religion and a betrayal of human nature or social norms. Luckily, we still have various media able to look at the issue through a different lens.

We may recall a story about a transvestite who was jailed because she married a man whom she loved. Previously, the court had ordered her to become the “real man” she was naturally intended to be. Another example is a transgendered person whose access to healthcare was denied because their gender identity was not recognized administratively.

Coming out as a homosexual in public can potentially rob you of your job, reputation, social life and lead to alienation from your family. It is as if letting people know that you have a different sexual preference from the majority is taboo and violates nature. Therefore, many gays opt to live in the closet and in some circumstances commit suicide. This shows how being sexually different from the mainstream culture makes individuals vulnerable.

Being a Muslim and gay at the same time sounds incompatible. Without attempting to make subjective justification based on religious texts, however, both aspects can coexist if we look at the idea that serving God has nothing to do with sexual preference. In many verses of the Koran there is no explicit sentence saying that someone cannot serve God if he or she practices same-sex relationships. Also, there are competing ideas about whether the people of Lot were punished because of their homosexuality or their negligence in serving God.

Within a more humanistic framework, celebrating beliefs and expressing sexual identity are part of our human rights and for that reason the government should recognize them as they are explicitly mentioned in international documents.

Nonetheless, for particular reasons the government has remained ignorant and let righteous vigilante groups exercise violence against sexual preference discourse.

Should homosexuals give up their faith even though they still believe that Islam is a peaceful religion and a blessing for the universe? Gay people still can practice their religious duties since religion is a personal relation with God and has nothing to do with sexual preferences. What can we expect from religious groups that spread their ideologies through blasphemy, abuse and negligence of their sense of shared humanity as creatures created by the same God as gay people? ..."

Read the full article from the 12 December 2011 article in The Jakarta Post.