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June 12, 2007
NY Blade letter: My Overlooked Message: U.S. LGBTers Must Pay Attention to Strife Between Gays, Muslims in Europe
I wrote letter to the editors of the NY Blade regarding the story "Fanning flames of fear, hatred against Muslims" that ran last week. They ran an edited version in the paper this week which you can read here. Below is my letter unedited and in full:
To the Editors:
I am concerned about Human Rights issues no matter where human rights are being violated. Naturally, I am especially interested in being a catalyst for change where LGBT people are denied their rights.
That is why I feel compelled to rebut Faisal Alam, who regrettably misunderstood an opinion piece I wrote regarding the impact of Islam on gay rights. That he attacked me personally for the piece I wrote is all the more ironic that I was talking about protecting the liberties of a gay person such as himself.
Mr. Alam fired a salvo at me which shows that despite his involvement with a LGBT Muslim group, he remains to some extent the victim of an anti-sex religious brainwashing, or at least, willing to promote that brainwashed point of view to bolster an argument that puts the interests of religious Muslims above the human rights of gay people worldwide. He said: “Michael Lucas, infamous for his porn empire, has suddenly become an expert on Islam and its view of homosexuality.” The prejudice against erotic entertainment stems mainly from religious sources, so why is Mr. Alam saying I’m infamous, rather than famous, for my business? Furthermore, does he believe that I built my business and expanded my artistic vision without having a keen intellect? Does he think that the keen intellect I exercise in running my business is not capacious enough to also study and understand, in-depth, Islam and its view of homosexuality?
I don’t at all mind giving you an idea of my education in Islam and gay rights. I have read the Koran and the Hadith, and I am troubled by many things in those texts. The Hadith calling for people engaging in gay sex to be killed, for example, is problematic. I have traveled in many Muslim countries, without particular pleasure, and observed the conditions for GLBT people there. I have read extensively on the topic of Islam and human rights. One enlightening book I can recommend is Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali. It is relevant to note that though Ms. Ali now resides in the US, she does so under perpetual security guard, as Muslims, some of them American, have called for her to be killed because of her critiques of their religion. Were the threats against her idle, she wouldn’t be using those security guards. I also want known that one of my personal heros and role models is the Arab woman Wafa Sultan, who also lives in the US with special security due to Islamic threats against her.
Mr. Alam claims that in my world, all Muslims are “fag-hating bigots.” Yet in the very article that provoked that reaction, I acknowledged that Muslim congressman Keith Ellison is on record as supporting equal rights for GLBTers. I am the first one to acknowledge when Muslims work for progressive change. Mr. Alam could do me the courtesy of not writing about me as though I were not.
Lebanon, Turkey, Malaysia and Indonesia were all cited by Mr. Alam as “hubs” of gay organizing. Yet, in an article on gay rights in Turkey that appeared in the International Herald Tribune on February 5, 2006, Kursad Kahramanoglu is quoted as saying that even those Turkish intellectuals, writers and artists who have come out “remain completely silent, giving in to the official state line that limits discussion of human rights violations in Turkey to the issues of the Kurdish community or freedom of expression.” It’s good that there are some gay bars in Istanbul but I am concerned with gay rights according to a profounder, more comprehensive standard. (FOR REFERENCE PURPOSES, THAT ARTICLE MAY BE FOUND HERE: http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/02/05/news/gays.php)
It often happens that Muslim LGBT groups will talk about “justice” as it relates to the conflict in Israel and Palestine, but not say one word about the plight of gay people among the Palestinian Arabs. Mr. Alam’s site www.al-fatiha.org indeed makes that call for “justice” in the matter of Israel, yet says nothing about the anti-gay “honor” killings that are a regular part of life among the Palestinian Arabs. Mr. Alam, to judge by what he wrote, considers those anti-gay murders a trivial detail when compared to what he alleges to be an advanced gay rights situation in Turkey. I have actually heard gay Muslims in the US say that because the Palestinians voted Hamas into power, Hamas should be supported by the outside world. Yet the Hamas charter calls for Israel to be replaced by an Islamic theocracy under Sharia law, with the Hadith consulted as legitimate sources in the legal system. As a reminder, the Hadith call for gay people to be killed. Therefore, obviously, anybody who expresses support for Hamas is automatically saying they support the elimination of the one genuine safe haven for LGBTers in the Middle East.
The only conference of lesbian Arab women ever held in the Middle East took place in Haifa, Israel, on March 28, 2007. It took place under heavy security supplied by the local Israeli government and was protested by Islamic groups within Israel. The Arab Knesset Member Abbas Zakour physically took part in one of those protests, and said: "The activity of these women diminishes the value of the human being and their actions are not accepted in the Muslim and Palestinian world." Another Arab Knesset member, Sheik Ibrahim Sasur, said this about the conference: “We oppose their intent to bring this issue to the open air.”
A complete rebuttal to Mr. Alam would require more space than I have here. But I’ll say that he used the results of a recent Pew survey of American Muslims to claim that American Muslims are the most mainstream of Americans. Yet that survey found that 26% of young American Muslims can find a justification for suicide bombings. That means there are hundreds of thousands in the US taking that position. I’m calling attention to that verifiable menace within our borders exactly because Mr. Alam and his co-religionists are not, even though they should be in the lead of solving the problems within their own community. 26% of the young in the American Muslim community find justification for suicide bombings, but Mr. Alam does not even admit that the problem exists. It’s also significant here to note that in Jordan, no Jew may be a citizen or purchase property. Yet those two anti-gay protestors I quote above are Arab members of the Israeli Knesset. I do not know whether Mr. Alam’s conception of justice in the Middle East includes a demand for Jews to be able to live normally in Jordan. But I am issuing a challenge to him to have made clearer, on the www.al-fatiha.org web site, and elsewhere, a commitment to gay rights in the Middle East, and to countering pernicious tendencies in the American Muslim community. For instance, I am, alas, accustomed to mainstream publications not saying much about murderous anti-gay fanaticism among the Palestinians. But that a GLBT Muslim website in the US would not mention it at all, while calling for “justice” between Israel and Palestine, is a circumstance screaming out for improvement. If nobody among Muslim Americans is even mentioning the issue, who will speak up for the human rights of those Palestinian gay people? I, born to a Jewish family, am doing it right here, right now. To which cause does Mr. Alam have a stronger allegiance; Islam, or GLBT rights?
Michael Lucas
New York City
Posted by Michael at June 12, 2007 02:26 PM
Comments
Faisal Alam has very slim credibility as a supporter of gay rights.
You are absolutely correct to observe that his allegiance to Islam is stronger than his devotion to gay rights.
I happen to have come across his comments on a Muslim listserve where . . . instead of making specific answer to your criticisms, which were presented in a most intelligent manner . . . he attacked you for having made a dildo modelled on your cock.
I dare say that Alam's fraternizing with religious Muslims (who support Hadith calling for gays to be killed) represents a greater threat to gay rights than does the marketing of a Michael Lucas dildo. Maybe Alam should have the dildo thrust in and out of his ass, to see if that would clear the cobwebs out of his brain.
One of his Muslim buddies put up a long essay against Israel, and in favor of the Palestinians, without mentioning that it is the Palestinians, not the Israelis, who carry out "honor killings" of the gay people among them.
That is outrageous, if it truly came from a gay person.
Moreover, the subject of your original piece was, as I recall, not Israel and not the Palestinians. It was Islam and gay rights.
Gay people among the Palestinian Arabs suffer a horrendous plight, not because Israel exists, but because Islamic homophobia keeps them in the closet and kills them if they come out. Don't hold your breath waiting for Faisal Alam to speak up on behalf of gay and lesbian people among the Palestinian Arabs; he has his hands full, militating against Israel, and so can't be bothered.
Posted by: Tight Hole at June 12, 2007 05:50 PM
I just finished reading INFIDEL, all these apologists should this book.Gay people that support these Islamist are nothing more than useful idiots who would be first to have their heads removed if they came to power here!
Posted by: ousslander at June 12, 2007 06:18 PM
What's typical of Muslim apologists . . . even when they belong to groups, such as gays, that Muslims oppress . . . is that they come crawling out of the woodwork to vociferously bitch when non-Muslims criticize Islam, but rarely if ever trouble themselves to actually criticize Islam, to find the source of a problem and propose means of improving or eliminating it.
Who can watch the sorry spectacles now unfolding in Gaza and Iraq . . . where Muslims are butchering other Muslims, and of course, all sides are fighting in the name of their version of "Allah" . . . I say who can watch that without realizing that what prevents Muslims from progressing in the modern world is their evident unwillingness to engage in self-critical thinking? Faisal Alam can find the time and motivation to criticize Michael Lucas over the dildo he markets, but where is one word from that person about Fatah and Hamas slaughtering each other?
Posted by: Richard McLellan at June 14, 2007 10:37 AM