It's not so long since we held the same views as Muslims about gay rights

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However, when asked to what extent they agreed or disagreed that homosexuality should be legal in Britain, 18% said they agreed and 52% said they disagreed, compared with 5% among the public at large who disagreed. Almost half (47%) said they did not agree that it was acceptable for a gay person to become a teacher, compared with 14% of the general population.

A great deal will be made of this finding. Some of it from bone-headed pundits will be straightforward 'bash the muslims' stuff but there will be more considered discussion along the lines we've seen from Trevor Phillips - 'Muslims aren't integrating'. Now there are a couple of comments to make here - firstly the conservative Muslim position on homosexuality isn't really much different from that of many Christians and Jews. I'm pretty sure that a survey of African Christians in the UK would provide a very similar result.

The second point is that we forget just how far we - both as a society and as individuals - have changed on the issue of homosexuality. In my lifetime we've moved from a society where homosexuality was illegal to one where we welcome gay marriage and have begun to wrestle with the question of transgender and 'gender fluidity'. Many people are still uncomfortable with homosexuality - just the other day I was told of someone still estranged from his family because he 'came out' some thirty years ago. And let's remember that in the 1980s polls told us well over half of people questioned thought gay people shouldn't be employed as teachers.

It has taken decades for us - at least formally through our laws if not always socially - to recognise that homosexuality is perfectly normal. And for many of us the personal journey is just as important - we've moved from 'condemn the sin but love the sinner' to deciding that being gay isn't a sin at all. Not everyone has made that journey but I'm confident that the coming generations - regardless of their parents' faith or ethnicity - will make that journey to tolerance faster than we did.

In the meantime we need to understand the difficulties faced by gay people growing up in Muslim communities (or for that matter those conservative Jewish or Christian communities) and be prepared to support both communities and gay people. Here's a quote from a poignant article by a gay Muslim:

That's why so many gay British Muslims choose to stay in the closet. This leads to a secret double life with dark consequences, such as the gay Muslims living in straight marriages. I’ve seen countless examples of marriages built on a bed of lies, frustration and the unrelenting pressure to conform. It’s not just the closeted individual that suffers. There’s a knock-on effect for the next generation of children who end up finding out that their parents’ marriage isn’t at all what it seemed.

It's only a few decades since this was true for the English so if we start sounding off about how Islam is 'medieval' or prejudiced let's remember that we were just the same a short while ago (and plenty of us still are). Our first task is to help those who want to live an open, happy life not to attack their community or the faith of their parents.

I live in Bradford and have, on several occasions, questioned whether the Council's - and by inference, the City's - agenda and 'action plan' around equality and equal rights is too geared towards matters of race and race quality to the exclusion of other concerns, in particular gay rights. It's not that there's nothing done at all - there's plenty of great work going on - but that we seem too one-eyed on these issues. Perhaps it's time to change the emphasis a little - in the interests of those gay people struggling in the dark within orthodox faith communities in our city?

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More on that pesky free speech...

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Apparently expressing the beliefs of mainstream christianisty, islam and judaism is now illegal:

Mr Miano has recently been out preaching in Wimbledon. He very much enjoys biblical evangelism, speaking about spiritual growth, personal holiness and the person and work of Jesus Christ. On Monday, his theme was sexual immorality - all forms (1Thess 4:1-12). He talked about sin - heterosexual and homosexual - without discrimination. As he was preaching, a lady heard him say that homosexuality was a sin, and promptly summoned the police, who duly arrived.

Mr Miano was then arrested for violating Section 5 of the Public Order Act: he was accused of using homophobic speech likely to cause anxiety, distress, alarm or insult.

Now I don't think that homosexuality is any sort of sin but I do know that free speech means others should be able to express that view. And I also know that many christians, muslims and jews consider homosexuality to be a sin.

But there's something about sinners - at least if you're a christian:

Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven. Luke 6:37

The suppression of free speech is an act of judgement as plainly as is the stoning of adulterers or the casting out of people we choose to label 'sinner'.

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Thoughts on prejudice, Christianity and the law

There was a time when casual racism was commonplace and (literally) unremarkable. We have thankfully left that behind – today racism is seldom ‘casual’ since no-one can argue seriously that they were unaware of what their words or actions signify. Of course, this does not mean that racism does not persist merely that we do not excuse even minor infractions. Some would argue that we have – in some instances – gone too far, at least in our responses to the use of racial terms and racial abuse. But, in the round, we are a better society for having made the changes – legal and behavioural – in our response to racism.

For sexuality, however, we have not travelled the same distance – while putting up a sign saying “no gays” is illegal, there remains a tendency to excuse actions or words that constitute ‘casual homophobia’. Most commonly this excuse comes in the form of ‘respecting religious faith’. Now, it is incontrovertible that mainstream Christian and Muslim belief views homosexuality as a sin (as is also the case for adultery, sex before marriage and masturbation). But this does not mean that Christians and Muslims should be exempted from anti-discrimination laws. So the woman managing a B&B who turns away a gay couple has no defence of being a Christian.

More interesting is how we respond as a society to this situation. Do we throw the full might and majesty of the law at the boarding house owner? Close her down? Or do we act proportionately – and if so, what exactly does that mean. It would be wrong to ignore the strictures of the law since that would undermine the effectiveness of that law. Would some sort of official “quiet word” be more effective? What I do think is that you cannot pass laws and expect that the following morning people will have changed what they think. And at the root of all this is prejudice – in this case a prejudice sustained by large, powerful religious organisations.

While there remains a liberal dilemma in all this – where do the rights lie in this matter – we have settled the issue of racial prejudice by saying that prejudice harms and therefore you have no right to be prejudiced (which isn’t the same as saying you cannot be prejudiced – the law can’t change that only you can). In the case of homosexuality, we have allowed ourselves to be constrained by a verse in Leviticus. Despite prejudice harming, we are prepared to excuse it in the interest of ‘respecting faith communities’. And the saddest thing in all this is that Christians (at least of the sort I was brought up to be) are taught to love the sinner – and that we are all sinners and that god loves us despite this. How can that be squared with turning a gay couple away from your B&B because you’re a Christian?

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