(16 Jun 2016) FOR CLEAN VERSION SEE STORY NUMBER: apus057642
After the massacre in Orlando, the head of a prominent Muslim advocacy group stood before a bank of microphones and made remarks beyond the expected condemnations.
Along with denouncing the attack by gunman Omar Mateen as a violation of Islam, and offering prayers for the victims at the gay nightclub Pulse, Nihad Awad of the Council on American-Islamic Relations expressed unequivocal support for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender civil rights.
``For many years, members of the (LGBT) community have stood shoulder to shoulder with the Muslim community against any acts of hate crimes, Islamophobia, marginalization and discrimination. Today, we stand with them, shoulder to shoulder,'' Awad said at a Washington news conference. ``We cannot fight injustice against some group and not against others.''
Omid Safi, director of the Duke University Islamic Studies Center, called the comments, and similar statements from other major Muslim groups, a ``shocking development'' from leaders who until last Sunday's tragedy ``would probably have never been seen uttering the words gay and lesbian publicly.''
The mass shooting, perpetrated by an American Muslim in a communal space for gays, has brought to the forefront Muslim attitudes toward homosexuality and the plight of LGBT Muslims.
A spokesman for Awad played down the director's remarks as nothing new. But Faisal Alam, who is gay and a founder of the support and advocacy group Muslim Alliance for Sexual and Gender Diversity, said such comments have opened `` a historic opportunity for us to talk to one another."
Eman Abdelhadi, a doctoral student at New York University who came out in college, said the attention could provide some much-needed visibility for LGBT Muslims who are ``often erased."
``The vast majority of American Muslims are illiterate as it relates to queer issues,'' said Ahmed Younis, an author who specializes in Islamic law and advocates acceptance of gays and equal treatment for women. He said he hoped for some real soul-searching beyond expressions of solidarity toward fully integrating gays and lesbians into Muslim life.
LGBT Muslims said the shooting sparked a complex set of emotions. They were devastated for their fellow gays and lesbians, while deeply concerned about anti-Muslim bias the shooting would generate. At the same time, they were caught at the intersection of two mutually wary groups: LGBT people who consider Islam uniquely anti-gay, and Muslims prejudiced against gays and lesbians.
Abdelhadi said she feared ``Islam and queerness being pitted against each other in a sort of battle and that just making it impossible for me to exist as I am."
The day after the shooting, more than 50 LGBT advocacy groups made an appeal for the gay community to reject anti-Muslim rhetoric. ``We know what it looks like and feels like to be scapegoated and isolated in the midst of a crisis,'' the groups said.
But Younis said the relationship between Muslims and LGBT advocates ``is not a natural or deep alliance.''
Many U.S. Muslim immigrants come from countries and cultures were gays are often violently persecuted, and harbor a deep antipathy toward LGBT people. But younger generations of American Muslims generally don't share these views, Younis said.
Last year, after the Supreme Court legalized gay marriage, author Reza Aslan and actor Hasan Minhaj published a letter to ``our fellow American Muslims,'' urging them to support civil rights for gays, even if Muslims are uncomfortable with, or outright opposed to, same-gender relationships.
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