The city of London, jewel of the United Kingdom, will play host to what’s being called the world’s first queer Muslim Pride festival, set to kick off this April 11, the Washington Examiner reports.
3 million Muslims call England home, including the mayor of London Sadiq Khan. A crowdfunding campaign launched by the LGBTQ Muslim charity group Imaan generated a full $20,000, enough to stage the event, which includes the usual music & food, as well as special performances, films and historical discussions centered on the queer Muslim identity. Alcohol will not be served at the festival, in keeping with Islamic traditions prohibiting drinking.
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“We have had to fight Islamophobia, Homophobia, Transphobia and Racism to get our voices heard and being part of this celebration is an opportunity to share the message that we are here, we are queer and some of us don’t drink beer!,” Asifa Lahore, a keynote speaker, said in an announcement. Other keynote speakers include filmmaker Amrou Al-Kadhi (writer of Little America: The Son) and activist Blair Imani.
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?Calling all LGBTQI Muslims!?
Tickets are now live for #ImaanFest Muslim Pride on 11 April in London. Don’t miss an amazing lineup of speakers, workshops, art, entertainment & food!https://t.co/xXxMq45ogY— LGBT Foundation (@LGBTfdn) February 26, 2020
Muslim Pride comes at a sensitive time for LGBTQ Muslims, who still face violence in the majority of Muslim countries, and who also face discrimination for their religion in the western world. In the UK, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has targeted both Muslim and LGBTQ people with hateful rhetoric.
marion
Bit of an oxymoron to say ‘Alcohol will not be served at the festival, in keeping with Islamic traditions prohibiting drinking’ whilst being part of a gay Muslim parade.
PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS
Good on them….
Hoping there will be an extraordinary amount of security to protect the celebrants from the Muslim nutbags smcubags who will be so very “offended” by Gay Muslims showing their pride….
Cam
Good for them. And I hope it hits every news channel across the middle east and north Africa.
theafricanwiththemouth
West Africa too, homophobia is insanely extreme here too.
alexpof
hope they dont get bombed by extremists
Thad
The Washington Examiner, that right-wing bathroom tissue publication, reported this?!? What was their motive? To link two of their ‘despicable’ groups, who at least in the USA have almost nothing to do with each other?
I applaud gay people from Muslim backgrounds coming together. I celebrate their existence. I wonder if reconciling Islam and homosexuality is as difficult as reconciling Christianity and homosexuality.
Hussain-TheCanadian
It’s really not that hard to reconcile both; back in the day, when I use to argue with the local Imams over homosexuality, I use to demand one verse that says “homosexuality is evil, its sinful, unnatural, punishable by death, decadent, (fill in the blank)……and ofcourse they couldn’t because none existed.
The only thing they can point to, are the verses relating to “the people of Lot” and their story, claiming that “homosexuality is frowned upon in those verses”. Now even if we believe this characterization, frowned upon, and creating laws to murder gay men, are two vastly different things. There are historical reasons why the Arabs of the 7th century have shrouded Arab cultural attitudes as Islamic law, but that is a long discussion for another day.
Also, surprise surprise, the hadiths (sayings) of Prophet Muhammad, that survived, on the subject are contradictory. Scholars will argue over the authenticity of each hadith, and ofcourse since most muslims on the planet languish under dictatorships, conservative scholars get their way, this eliminates open discussion.
marion
I was wondering who would be the first person to present the ‘whataboutism or Tu Quoque’ argument
CityguyUSA
Boris Johnson’s just following in Trump’s footsteps. I guess he thinks it’s cool or something.