Cis American Muslims and LGBTQ+ Solidarity

There is a very savvy Christian supremacist far right movement that has been playing the long game for at least 50 years in the US. Its purpose is to maintain a nation with a white, straight, Christian majority (hence the Quiverfull and antiabortion movements). Absent a majority, the objective is to maintain white Christian economic, political and social power.  

This movement has no interest in the religious rights of Muslims. Evangelical Christians do not, as a matter of principle, accept the legitimacy of Islam. But the Christian right will happily encourage and platform Muslims who target LGBTQ+ visibility, especially in schools. 

Muslim theology contains the unassailable principle that judgement is for God alone. There is no parallel unassailable principle against queer sexuality or against queer gender identities. In other words, the hate is the problem here.

And, if we're honest, the hate itself isn't principled; it's just Muslim parents' fear that their kid might not be straight or cis. It's a desperate denial that there are plenty of LGBTQ+ Muslims. There's nothing special or acceptable about acting monstrously because of one's own fear. That's pretty much the story of every bad act in the world.

I've seen liberal Muslims argue that the issue isn't training civics or tolerance; the issue is celebrating and affirming LGBTQ+ sexuality and identity because these violate someone else's moral principles. This is broadly parallel to the argument that no reparations and no special curriculum on race history need be introduced in the post civil rights era because there are still racists around who like the status quo just fine.  

As a matter of culture and survival, the celebration, reparation, and education ARE essential to equity. Countering hundreds, if not thousands of years of murderous persecution actually requires ACTIVE reversal of the legacy of hatred. That's why we have Holocaust education, for example. When bigotry is rooted in culture it must be uprooted, or it will continue to fester and it will continue to be deadly.

Another unassailable principle of Islamic theology is that when we see an injustice--the persecution of vulnerable people being a consistent example--we're supposed to oppose it. Not jump on the bandwagon.