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.

GAY TIGERS

PHOTOGRAPH: PinkDot Singapore
The world watches as gay rights in South East Asia come under scrutiny this week as 29 LGBTIQ groups from 8 Southeast Asian nations take a stand to stop LGBTs being treated as criminals and second class citizens. 40 brave activists from eight countries, some of which from nations where homosexuality is illegal and punishable by law, have gathered in Jakarta to show that the recognition, promotion and protection of LGBT rights are long overdue. The Indonesian capital hosts the ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) Civil Society Conference and ASEAN People's Forum this week.

Indonesian and Vietnamese groups Arus Pelangi and iSEE led the meeting, to raise awareness for the challenges faced by LGBT communities in South East Asia. They called upon civil society and governments to protect the rights of sexual minorities in the region. Currently, there are laws in some countries that criminalises sexual orientation and gender identity and have yet to recognise LGBT rights as human rights. Laws and policies also vary from country to country and forward thinking nations of the association are not doing enough to harmonize LGBT rights in the region, by applying pressure on those countries who criminalise it. In addition, LGBTs are not protected by any association-wide based mechanisms or human rights instruments.

In addition, the groups are calling to depathlogise sexual and gender orientation and promote the well-being of all people, to ensure equal and unhindered access to health and social services.

Sounds crazy right? Especially to those of us lucky enough to live in countries where such basic rights have become part of the social fabric. As someone whose heritage links to one of these countries, it upsets me that this is still happening in these supposedly developed 'Tiger' economies.

Our Asian brothers and sisters in Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei, and Burma are still being dehumanised. Authorities arrest, detain and persecute individuals because of colonial laws that criminalize their sexual orientation or gender identity. In other ASEAN countries, certain laws are abused with impunity to harass or persecute individuals whose sexuality or gender is deemed unacceptable, immoral, or unnatural: anti-prostitution, anti-trafficking, or anti-pornography laws in Indonesia and the Philippines are applied to conduct illegal raids in gay establishments or to nab transgenders, oftentimes subjecting them to humiliation and extortion. The anti-kidnapping law in the Philippines is likewise used to forcibly break apart lesbian couples living under consensual and legitimate relationships.

Instead of representing the interests of all citizens, many governments and state institutions become instruments of religious and sectarian prejudice. In Surabaya, Indonesia, the police was complicit in an attack by an intolerant religious group against the participants of an international LGBTIQ conference.

A climate of stigma and discrimination prevails in most, if not all, ASEAN countries. From Vietnam to Brunei Darussalam, social stigma persists. Sexual orientations and gender identities outside heterosexuality and patriarchal gender norms are considered as a sickness that can be corrected through rape, reparative camps like in Besut, Malaysia, only one of several camps in the country, and other damaging psycho-social measures.

I'm proud of my kinsmen and women who refuse to be silenced by prejudice and fully support and applaud these brave individuals who are part of the grassroots fight to make the South East Asian spirit of peace, tolerance and understanding apply equally to all its people.