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.

THE BEAT GENERATION

London in the 50s and 60s was home to a vibrant but illegal underground scene of gay bars and clubs – smoky venues filled with all manner of people brought together in the hope of connecting with like-minded souls, despite the danger. Veterans of the era share their memories of the 'good ol' days'.

COMPILED AND ILLUSTRATED BY ROBIN WHITMORE

GROPED ALL THE WAY TO THE BAR!

THE place to go on a Saturday night was the Standard. It was almost opposite Eros almost next door to Lilywhites. I don’t know what’s replaced it at the moment or what’s there now but it was a fantastic pub and I shall never ever forget the first time I ever went to it and it was really my introduction to the West End gay scene. I was taken by a very gay friend from Harlow and he insisted that he wouldn’t take me to London unless I dressed the part, and I said, well what’s that? And he said, well, you let me choose the clothes. Give me your measurements and let me choose the clothes for you.

 

Anyway, I gave him some money etc for the clothes and when he brought them there were these skin tight trousers that I couldn’t bend the knees in, brothel creepers we called them which were black suede shoes, red and black striped socks and a scarlet shirt with black stripes to match the socks and he said, Now you’ve got to have that open to the waist, and don’t wear anything underneath and if you’ve got a big medallion to wear round your neck so much the better! This is early 60’s when this sort of thing was unheard of. Even coloured shirts in those days, they were khaki navy or white.

 

I tell you how scared I was. But once we got on the train I relaxed a bit and the nearer we got to London the more comfortable I began to feel. By the time we got to London I remember we were walking down Shaftesbury Avenue towards Piccadilly Circus and even in London which is so used to seeing unusual sights, heads were turning, dressed as we were by this time. I was beginning to enjoy it. It was absolutely blatant. We got to the pub the Standard and the main bar was the street level bar which was a bit unusual and it was all service. Most of the people were in uniform! There were sailors up from Plymouth and Portsmouth, some soldiers, a lot of foreign soldiers, American people … over half the people were service men.

 

I said to Ray when we were in the bar, "Why are there so many servicemen here?"

And he said, "What do you think!?"

He said they haven’t got a lot of money and people like us come in for a good time he said we get a good time because these sailors are looking for a bed for the night. They’ve come up from Plymouth and Portsmouth they are willing to spend their money on us if we’ll take them home and give them a bed for the night. So of course the gays were quite willing to take home the sailors and the soldiers back home. What better?

 

The thing was it was SO crowded we were getting groped all the way to the bar!  But you didn’t know who was doing it, cos we were all packed so close. "Who did that", I thought?  Mind you I’d never been into a gay London pub before, this was my first experience of it so you can imagine, I was horrified! I was getting touched up the arse, my cock was getting groped, and he was just laughing. By the time I got to the bar I thought that it was great fun.

We hadn’t been there five minutes and he said, "Ron, I need to leave you for a minute there’s somebody over there by the door I want a word with".

I said, "Oh don’t leave me."

"Oh you’ll be alright on your own", he said, "I’ll only be gone about five minutes."

 

I was standing there for nearly half an hour till Ray comes back. "Where the bloody hell have you been? You said you’d only be five minutes."

He said, "well my friend has got a flat just round the corner and he took me back for a quickie."

I said, "Oh Ray!  I wish you’d have warned me just exactly what sort of place this was. You know I expected a bit of fun but I didn’t think it was going to be quite like this. I said I’ve been propositioned half a dozen times while I’ve been waiting for you."

"You lucky bugger! What are you grumbling about? Do you want to go back in there again?"

I said that I would like to find somewhere where I can relax just a little bit more.

"Ok, I’ll take you to the Captain’s Cabin it’s just round the corner." ...

Ron

Read Ron's and other great stories from the gay London of yester-year in the London section of Issue 2, on sale now: SUBSCRIBE TODAY

 

Robin Whitmore is an artist based in London, UK. He collected these verbatim, unedited accounts from a group of random friends, as part of Duckie’s ‘Gross Indecency’ night in 2010.