thats interesting

wonder if he'll retract it?

he seemed to loike birmingham pride though

 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2005/06/312763.html

Once upon a time there was a lady called Mary Whitehouse, she believed that the world should be run on certain moral principles that she passionately believed in. There are some people in the gay community like Peter Tatchell and those self appointed censors who posted this article who believe, like Mary Whitehouse, that they have a similar moral authority to censor the beliefs of other people and impose their own ideological belief system.

Any kind of criticism of their concept of what it is to be gay or their ideological assumptions is seen as an attack on all gay people, it isn't and nor is Adam Yousef saying this in the article quoted above. Adam may have made a bitchy throw away remark, but hey, gay men never bitch about heterosexuals or heterosexual marriages, do they?

There is considerable diversity within the gay community. There are many gay couples who stay together for years, yet have open relationships, so in this factual respect Adam Yousef comment has an element of truth. What concerns me more is the lack of honesty by the Tatchellettes about the problems that occur within the gay community, for example, domestic violence, sex tourism, the consumption of large amounts of drugs in so many gay clubs and social events or the toleration of neo-Nazis because they are gay. Such issues are ignored because they do not confer victim status or look good for the gay community. Instead the self-appointed 'gay moral majority' scan the pages of Muslim papers looking for 'evidence' of homophobia in Islam and fall on Adam Yousef single sentence.

The fact is many gay people are getting sick of these hypocritical, unelected and self-righteous moralists, who wish to use indymedia to promote their own narrow ideology to define what it is to be gay and claim to speak on the behalf of the majority. Especially, when there are so many examples of institutionalised bigotry within the gay community that the Mary Whitehouses never challenge. For example, the Pink Paper will not accept lonely hearts ads from bisexual men, so society must accept people being gay but the gay communities’ main publication cannot cope with bisexuality. Funny how such double standards in the gay press are not exposed by the Tatchellettes, by contrast fairly tame comments by a young Muslim journalists leads to a vitriolic campaign against him.

Finally, no one has the right to censor journalists, even if they do get a bit bitchy, and it is highly inappropriate for an alternative media forum like indymedia to tolerate such a fundamental attack on freedom of speech and freedom of the press.

Who exactly is the bigot here?

You have a journalist, in this case Adam Yosef, who seems to have said some nice things about the gay community in his above article link and then he's also said some bad things. I don't think it is contradictory as suggested above. Gay people can like Pride and hate Peter Tatchell-style campaigns so why can't a mainstream journalist?

Then you have a Gay Media Watch attacking a journalist who hasn't actually said anything that would be equivalent to some of the rants we get from the BNP, the church or even Sir Iqbal Sacranie recently. It is true that gay relationships do fail just as heterosexual relationships too so it's a fair comment, even if it quite 'bitchy'. If it wasn't for the pride article, maybe I would say Adam Yosef is a little homophobic but it's hard to once you read the article.

What shocks me is how members of the gay community, who should know tolerance better than most, are attacking any Muslim person who says anything out of place. That makes us no better than the BNP and the like. Tatchell-types seem to follow trends. if the public is talking about the Pope, they attack his stance on gays, if it's a Royal Wedding, they hijack that too. if it's a Holocaust Memorial, they try to make an ill-timed point and get chucked out, making the gay community look really really bad and if it's post 7/7, they start attacking Muslims who might not agree with the gay community.

I'm sure numeorus columnists have made more homophobic remarks since civil partnerships became legal so why make these campaigns so personal? If anything, simply explain the errors to the writer but don't sue the man! I distrust the motives of Tatchell-wanabes anyway.

Of all the journo's and celebrities that have recently said dodgy stuff about gay marriage why have you selected Adam Yosef?

Of course, the straight left wouldn't understand the bitter irony in their comparing gay campaigners with Mary Whitehouse. Whitehouse's campaigns to silence the fledgling gay press back in the 1970's prompted little solidarity from the left. Only secularist organisations such as the NSS, the British Humanist Association and the more militant class-struggle anarchists allied with the embattled paper Gay News and its editorial team, even when they were at risk of imprisonment for criminal blasphemy. For much of the left, still steeped in the pseudo-Freudian puritanism of the Stalinist period, support for GN was regarded as risking unpopularity with "the workers".

As for Bermondsey Bill - well, he has once again made several fundamental errors in his headlong rush to slag off homosexuals. The Pink Paper (which, contrary to his assertions, isn't "the gays" biggest circulation title) has accepted advertisements from bisexuals since its inception in 1987 and gives large amounts of coverage to the annual Bicon Event, the newsletter Bi Community News and other projects. He is right to state that there is a wide variety of opinion and lifestyles amongst gays and then falls into his usual rut of claiming that there are gay Nazis. He occasionally names Ernst Rohm (murdered by Himmler's troops in 1933 precisely because he was gay) and Nicholas Vincenti Crane - a Nazi skinhead who 'came out' in a Channel Four documentary in 1993, and was never accepted by the gay community anyway. Perhaps Bill's problem is - in the words of the American Socialist Scott Tucker "The left has a selective memory - always remembering gay rightists like Roy Cohn or Rohm, and conveniently erasing the vast number of gay radicals, left wingers and progressives, like Edward Carpenter, Gertrude Stein, Bayard Rustin, Tony Kushner and Harry Hay".

Funnily enough, the continuation of all this nonsense from heterosexual left wingers actually demonstrates the continuing importance of autonomous movements for minority groups and the reason why the left is mostly viewed with suspicion outside of actvisit ghettoes. You see, whilst the Bermondsey Bills are busy performing semantic somersaults to try and insinuate that sex tourism is a uniquely 'gay' issue, then the need for OutRage! and other such groups will remain.

Thanks for the article, I will be following some of the links and complaining. It is
outrageous that such a homophobic statement can be put into print.

("Hmmm...gay weddings... Gay people and commitment? I don't think so... They'll be
shagg*ng the neighbours before they even cut the cake. Bad idea I'm afraid. Great way of
evading tax though..." )

It totally supports the narrow bigoted view that many people have about gay relationships
being just about promiscuous sex. And completely denies all of the long standing committed
partnerships. I have not had a chance to read the rest of the article but I can't see how
anyone that has a real respect for gay rights could have written that.

The other comments seem to believe that the is article has singled out Adam Yosef because he is a Muslim journalist, I don't know the ins and outs of so-called "Thatchellism" but I think it is irrelevant to the article. I think the author/s were clear in why they were so disappointed in finding such a sentiment expressed in a supposedley alternative magazine aimed at Muslim young people.

"It is hard for members of the gay community to fight the bigotry and intolerance in our society. It's evident that this is even harder for members of the ethnic community who have greater difficulty with acceptance due to religious and cultural pressures from the family."

Thanks to Caz for a great comment that summed up how I feel.

Yes, why Adam Yosef? Would attacking a non-Muslim NOT have been in keeping with the current political climate?

Are you more likely to get press coverage if you attack a Muslim?

That is not a just cause. Even if it were, there's ahost of Muslims who are homophobic and claim to represent their faith. Mr Yosef makes no claim, he just writes for an entertainment rag.

Is this a personal attack???

 http://www.islamophobia-watch.com/islamophobia-watch/2006/1/3/gay-magazine-in-race-row.html

It swings both ways, my LGBT comrades!

The following article appeared in a May issue of Gay Times (in 1999?) - a monthly gay magazine published in the United Kingdom.

A picture of 2 gay Muslim men appears with the article which can be viewed at  http://www.gaytimes.co.uk/public_html/news-magazines/gt260/features_may.html

Sodom & the Koran - By Raza Griffiths

Can you be gay and a Muslim?

Yusuf Islam, the musician formerly known as Cat Stevens, thinks not, and he has thrown his weight behind Baroness Young's campaign to retain Section 28.

But he cannot speak for all Muslims any more than the noble lady can speak for every Christian.

Increasingly, lesbian and gay Muslims are coming out about their pride in both their sexuality and their religion.

------------------------------------------------------------

RAZA GRIFFITHS reports

Religious homophobia has made many gay people frankly dismissive of all orthodox religions. Yet even within this general scepticism, Islam is seen by some as being particularly homophobic, and conjures up images of veiled women and fanatical bearded imams stoning homosexuals to death in public squares. While this picture in part springs from widespread Islamophobia, and does scant justice to the day-to-day reality of how homosexuality is accommodated in practice within the billion-strong Islamic world, it is not entirely without foundation.

Homosexual acts are a capital crime in several Muslim countries. In many others, including Pakistan, they carry mandatory prison sentences. In Iran, Islamic hardliners who came to power in 1979 imposed the death penalty for homosexual acts, in accordance with Islamic law, or shariah. Many of those condemned have been stoned to death, in accordance with some interpretations of the shariah. Precise information on the number of such executions is difficult to establish, says Nassim, a member of Homan, a gay group for Iranians living in the West. This is because the Iranian press suppressed reports of homosexual executions following strong protests from Western gay activists about the killings. In the early years of the Islamic regime, however, when all activities deemed "un-Islamic" were openly and vigorously repressed, there were well-documented accounts of whole groups of people at clandestine homosexual parties being rounded up and executed without any evidence of homosexual activity having taken place.

This zeal to rid Iran of homosexuals went directly against the limits set even by the shariah, which expressly forbids spying to prove homosexual acts have been committed, and, furthermore, demands that four male Muslims of sound mind witness the act of penetration for the death penalty to be incurred. This standard of proof, if properly followed, makes prosecutions for homosexual acts almost impossible in practice - though Nassim claims that the Iranian authorities themselves regularly acted as "witnesses" in order to secure convictions. Nevertheless, the result is covert tolerance, if not overt acceptance, of homosexuality in the majority of Muslim countries, as long as it is not publicly seen or talked about.

The present is a time of monumental upheaval in Iran, with liberal reformers having won a landslide victory in the Iranian Parliament. However, says Nassim, it is simply too early to assess what impact, if any, this will have on the situation for homosexuals in Iran. In Afghanistan, meanwhile, where shariah law is also in operation, the fundamentalist Taliban regime's preferred method of execution is to bulldoze a wall onto the guilty parties, who are made to lie in a trench dug especially for this purpose. Whole villages turn out for these occasions, with relatives of the condemned among those forced to watch. The Taliban have made no sign that these executions are going to stop, despite protests from human rights agencies such as Amnesty International.

Many western countries now have large Muslim populations. In Germany, there are three million Muslims, mainly of Turkish origin, while France has two million north African Muslims. In Britain, the Muslim community is predominantly from the Indian subcontinent and numbers one-and-a-half million. Of these, an estimated 75,000 are homosexual (a figure based on a report on British Muslims by the Runnymede Trust in 1998). Muslim religious leaders in Britain officially reject homosexuality completely. Alongside churches, synagogues and Sikh and Hindu temples, Muslim organisations such as the Islamic Party of Britain have been organising petitions protesting against the Government's attempts to scrap Section 28. Ricky Potts, the acting Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Officer at the University of Wales in Bangor, was horrified to be asked to sign a petition, against the scrapping of Section 28, drawn up by the Islamic Presentation Centre International Limited. The petition claimed that to scrap the Section would expose children "to immoral values and practices [and] will also undermine the institutions of the family and damage the fabric of our society. Any teaching in school which presents homosexual practices Š in a morally neutral way is profoundly offensive and totally unacceptable to all communities and religions."

Such political action takes its inspiration from an orthodox interpretation of Islamic doctrine. Sheikh Sharkhawy, a senior cleric at the prestigious Regent's Park Mosque, in a written response to my questions, compares homosexuality to a "cancer tumour", which must be removed to preserve the health of society. Viewing homosexuals as "paedophiles and Aids carriers" who have no hope of a "spiritual life", he openly and unashamedly argues for the execution of gay males over the age of ten and life imprisonment for lesbians. Like many orthodox imams, he views homosexuality as a symbol of a peculiarly "Western" decadence, claiming that "homosexuality is not tolerated in Islamic countries".

More liberal imams, such as Sheikh Zaki Badawi of the Ealing Muslim College, refuse to pigeonhole homosexuality in this way. Speaking to Gay Times, he said that "the film My Beautiful Laundrette [which centres on the love of a gay Muslim man for a white former racist] should serve as a useful reminder to the Muslim community that they cannot simply sweep gays and lesbians under the carpet. Homosexuality has always existed and continues to exist in all Islamic countries. Indeed, many high-ranking leaders in the Islamic world are gay." Sheikh Badawi categorically rejects homophobic violence. "In Britain," he says, "we Muslims are in a minority, and it should not be our task to encourage intolerance towards other minorities." He is one of the few Muslim figures who advocates the teaching of homosexuality in the context of sex education lessons in schools, as long as it does not challenge the "normality" of the traditional heterosexual family by "promoting" homosexuality. However, toleration does not equal acceptance, and even he considers homosexuality to be a "problem" similar to alcoholism, which is against Islamic teaching, even though being an alcoholic or gay does not disqualify one from being Muslim.

Such attitudes from within the Muslim community have made positive validation of a gay Muslim identity extremely difficult. Not surprisingly, many gay people from Muslim backgrounds simply leave Islam. At a recent meeting on the subject in Leicester (where there is a large Muslim population), a young gay man who had rejected Islam said simply, "It's a choice between praying and sucking cock - you can't do both at the same time." Other gay Muslims who are very religious often become severely depressed as a result of the internalised guilt they feel at their closeted sexuality.

Compared with homosexuals from other faith denominations, the situation for gay Muslims of faith has been noticeably bad. For many years now, gay and gay-friendly Christian organisations and individuals, such as the Rt Revd Richard Holloway, the Bishop of Edinburgh, have very publicly denounced homophobia while affirming the possibility of being gay and remaining true to one's faith

In the past three years, the homophobia of Islamic orthodoxy has begun to be challenged by gay Muslims themselves. It all started with the formation of a ground-breaking new homosexual Muslim group, Al-Fatiha, in the US in 1997. Al-Fatiha is the brainchild of Faisal Alam. Facing the same dilemmas as other gay Muslims, he searched the internet to find information about homosexuality and Islam. Finding absolutely nothing there, he set up his own internet discussion group (listserv) for gay Muslims from all over the world to discuss issues of common concern in a safe environment. The listserv has now grown to over 1,500 members worldwide, from America to Indonesia. The first Al-Fatiha Retreat, attended by 40 people, took place in Boston in October 1998.

Faisal Alam crossed the Atlantic in November 1999 to form an Al-Fatiha chapter in this country. The very first meeting of Al-Fatiha UK brought together 30 men and women from all over Britain to the basement of a bar in Old Compton Street, Soho - the heart of London's gay scene. Faisal convened a second meeting in Leicester and a third, also in Soho, before returning home to the States. At these gatherings, people shared the intricacies of their lives as well as discussing some of the theological arguments for a pro-gay Muslim position. Many had their own tales to tell of ostracism and feelings of isolation, but also inspirational stories of being gay and Muslim.

The name Al-Fatiha is taken from the title of the first chapter of the Koran, and signifies "the Beginning" or "Opening". It consists of an invocation for guidance from Allah, who is referred to as "the Compassionate, the Merciful One". Faisal Alam believes that these qualities - and not the fundamentalism of extremist groups - represent the true essence of Islam. In addition, Faisal explains, the "Opening" refers hopefully to the beginning of a dialogue through which the mainstream Muslim community will come to acknowledge the millions of gay Muslims in its midst and open its arms to them.

Despite the severe hostility homosexual Muslims had experienced from their communities, some people at the early meetings of Al-Fatiha UK were wary of provoking an Islamophobic backlash by highlighting exclusively Islamic homophobia. Ali, a sexual health worker from NAZ who runs an HIV forum, had been forced to move after unsolicited visits to his home from an imam from the Balham mosque and some of his followers. They demanded that he stop his work, which, they said, was "corrupting" the Muslim community, "or else". Yet, says Ali, "I believe that what they did was not Islamic in the sense I understand Islam. There is considerable Islamophobia in Britain, and the last thing we as gay Muslims want is to be marginalised twice over, once for being gay and again for being Muslim."

Yet this dilemma is little understood by the wider gay community. A leader article in the September 7th, 1998 issue of the now-defunct London-based gay magazine Metropolis even called for homophobic Muslims to be deported back to their country of origin. "While we understand that the extreme homophobia of some Muslims leads non-Muslim gay people to characterise Islam itself as homophobic," says Ifti, an Al-Fatiha spokesperson, "we have to be very careful to make a distinction between the two so as not to alienate potential straight Muslim supporters and to offer homosexual Muslims the possibility of being true to their faith. We have to emphasise the fact that interpreting the religious texts is a dynamic process and that application of religious laws must take into account the changing social context. While we recognise that we have many powerful allies in the non-Muslim community, we must also recognise that, ultimately, the situation for gay Muslims of faith can only be improved by changing attitudes from within the Muslim community itself. This is the revolutionary task Al-Fatiha is attempting to carry out."

Not everyone views being gay and Muslim as a burden, however. A lesbian member of Al-Fatiha UK, Nur-ul-Islam, emphasises that although her dual identity had caused her a lot of internal soul-searching, it was finally a source of tremendous inspiration to her, as she had to question everything about herself and her spirituality in a way straight people do not. This led her on a quest for a higher spiritual meaning. "Contrary to what fundamentalists might say, Islam is not a dogmatic religion but emphasises the search for truth. Being gay or lesbian can be a real spur to this quest," she insists.

Al-Fatiha members have been active in UNISON, Britain's largest public sector trade union, which has many gay Muslim members. UNISON's National Gay and Lesbian Committee (which has 2,500 members) passed a resolution last year which supported Al-Fatiha in its activities while
condemning the homophobic persecution of gays in Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, plans are underway to open a chapter of Al-Fatiha in Jerusalem - a city which is considered the third holiest in Islam, after Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia. This chapter will operate with the help of the Jerusalem Open House, a multi-faith gay centre co-founded by Rabbi Steven Greenburg, the US's only openly gay orthodox rabbi. A copy of the Koran and resources for gay Muslims are to be housed at the Open House's library. In this way it is hoped to help create dialogue between the city's sharply segregated religious communities as well as offering help for homosexual Muslims. Within the next two years Al-Fatiha hopes to connect with LGBTQ Muslims and organise support and discussion groups around the world.

Al-Fatiha is not the world's first gay Muslim organisation. An earlier San Francisco-based group, called the Lavender Crescent Society, misjudging the situation completely, sent five members to Iran in 1979 following the overthrow of the Shah and the coming to power of the hard-line Ayatollah Khomeini, in the hope of creating an Iranian gay Muslim movement. The five were taken straight from the airport to a place of execution and killed. Gay Iranians were forced to go underground after this.

Even within the West, gay Muslims are bound to attract a certain level of hostility. An organisation called Min-Alaq was formed in Toronto in the early 1990s, but folded after threats from religious fundamentalists. Al-Fatiha has also received death threats just before some of its events, though no incident has occurred so far. For the forthcoming Retreat in London, the Metropolitan Police are in contact with the New York police to assist in security concerns. "We are aware of the potential negative reaction from fundamentalist groups in Britain, such as Al Muhajiroun, and will take all necessary precautions to ensure the event goes smoothly," said an Al-Fatiha UK spokesperson.

Caz said:
"Funnily enough, the continuation of all this nonsense from heterosexual left wingers actually demonstrates the continuing importance of autonomous movements for minority groups and the reason why the left is mostly viewed with suspicion outside of actvisit ghettoes."

In a staggering display of a rhetorical somersault, Caz manages to argue that it is genuine socialists and the working class who are the reason for the failure of the left rather than minority groups like gays, feminists, nudists, sandal wearers, fruit juice drinkers, pacifists, Quakers, asylum seekers, Muslims, nature cure quacks, et al.

The "activist ghettoes" of the above groups are the reason that the left is viewed with suspicion by the working class. The right and the BNP cleverly exploits this by branding the far left as freaks and loony lefts. Look at how succesful they've been: 18 years of a Tory government, followed by 9 years of Tory lite, and the BNP now making record headway in poll results.

Socialists should support the 6-7% of gay people on principle, but that doesn't mean we should bow down before reformist millionaires like Peter Tatchell just because he is a leading gay rights activist.

The observation that minority groups attach themselves to the socialist and communist movements was first made by George Orwell in the 'Road to Wigan Pier'. He regarded that whilst the left should be sympathetic to these movements, they can hijack the movement and distract from the main aim which is working class liberation through the elimination of the capitalist economic system.

Facts rather than ideological mumbo-jumbo is the basis of truth.

In the early 1990’s Nicky Crane was employed as a bouncer at a gay pub called the Golden Lady just off Old Compton Street, London WC1. Caz claims the gay community did not accept Crane, but someone employed him! Moreover, on one occasion whilst working at the pub Crane beat up a black transvestite. Although Crane came-out he never gave up being a Nazi, so the gay community cannot claim they did not know what his political views were - he had a swastika tattooed on his arm for God's sake!

In addition, the gay community and publican of the Golden Lady were informed by several different anti-fascist organisations about Crane’s membership of the British Movement and involvement with Blood and Honour. Despite being presented with evidence of Crane’s past no action was taken against Crane. This was possibly due to his HIV status, although anti-fascists only learnt of this when Crane subsequently died of AIDS.

Not only was Ernst Roehm gay, but the NSDAP’s first meeting place in Munich was a gay bar called the Bratwurstgloeckl. Other top Nazis’s who were gay included Edmund Heines, Karl Ernst, Paul Rohrbein and, possibly, Rudolf Hess.

In the last election the BNP fielded their first openly gay candidate.

Gay Nazis should concern the progressive element of the gay community as it would appear to becoming a bit of a growing international phenomena, although its good to see that people sorted them out when they attempted to go on a Pride march see;

 http://www.forward.com/issues/2001/01.03.16/news6.html

 http://www.frameline.org/festival/29th/programs/heroes_and_gay_nazis.html

The original post called on people to protest to the press complaints authority about two sentences Adam Yousef wrote - that is censorship by any definition. Rather than campaigning against Adam Yousef’s catty comments, the gay community should start shifting its focus and money from moralising self-righteousness indignation – yes the Mary Whitehouse tag is appropriate and deliberate - and put its own house in order.

If certain self-appointed elements in the gay community continue to attempt to dictate how to behave, what to think, what to write and what to say, the whole gay community will find itself increasingly resented and isolated. That is far more dangerous that any number of bitchy or ill informed comments.

Thank you for all of your comments and thank you for complaining. Whatever your views, we are sure that you will appreciate an apology or a retraction from writer Adam Yosef and the Desi Xpress newspaper.

However, we have been informed that the current edition of the newspaper has a further attack on the gay community as Mr Yosef's column features gay rights and human rights activist Peter Tatchell alongside Nick Griffin of the BNP and radical cleric preacher Omar Bakri Mohammed. It describes them all as 'vile' and as 'bigots'.

We are awaiting a scan of the newspaper page but we shall be issuing a release as soon as this has been viewed and confirmed. Surely, you now realise the importance of taking action against homophobic journalists. If action is not taken the attacks will become more frequent and much easier.

Furthermore, we challenge the accusations that we have selected Mr Yosef because of his faith as we have not. The article in question was brought to our attention by a volunteer who is a gay Muslim. We are also not trying to censor valid views but fighting homophobia which always begins as banter until it results in harm and brainwashing on a larger scale - remember Nazi Germany? We also refute the accusations that we are attacking Mr Yosef in any personal capacity as we are not. We do not know him personally. We are a new organisation but are also pursuing the homophobic views of Sir Iqbal Sacranie and Robert Mugabe amongst others.

For the record, we do support most of the campaigns of Peter Tatchell and Outrage! but also support other gay rights organisations and are not affiliated to any of them politically or personally. In this instance, Mr Tatchell has expressed his support in our campaign against Adam Yosef as a journalist, for which we are grateful.

The reason why the left is seen as "freakish" is because of all the ridiculous in-fighting that goes on. It doesn't really matter whether Yosef is Muslim or not. He shouldn't have said what he said and it is right to challenge him. The fact that he is aligned with left wing politics - and has obviously not thought through the bigotted comments that he has made - is saddening. I'm heartened that he has made a full apology and I hope the posting about the Desi Xpress article comparing Tatchell with Griffin and Omar Bakri Mohammed is wrong. Tatchell is not a millionaire and I believe the obsession from the left about slagging him off is just another example of the ridiculous lefty in-fighting. I also agree with the comment posted about socialist/left wing groups not always being willing to seriously take on board/and fight for gay issues. It's okay to talk about imperialism/capitalism/racism etc etc but when it comes to talking about gay issues the passion suddenly seems to run out.

Phil, has he apologised? I didn't read that. It said we would appreciate an apology. What makes you think he has apologised or even will - if you've come across an apology, can we have it plz?

Sir Iqbal Sacranie's message of homophobia must be seeping its way into the masses if even today's muslim youth are spewing the same old anti-gay sh*t. When will it stop and how far will it go?
This assumption that the elder Muslims are old-fashioned and the younger Muslims will prevail as representatives of diversity and tolerance couldnt be more wrong!
What's worse is the gay members on this forum who are actually SUPPORTING a clearly homophobic writer, Adam Yosef.
I really do believe that the left today have lost their moral duty to the cause of LGBT liberation and defense of LGBT liberties and rights at the expense of appeasing the Muslim community, all for the sake of having a bigger anti-war movement - sell outs!

Maybe we need to redress that balance....


 http://uk.gay.com/boards/read.php?f=5&i=19396&t=19396 (post views)

 http://indymedia.us/en/2006/01/13364.shtml (post views on US site)

 http://www.asiansinmedia.org/forum/general/topic.php/7527/index.html (post views on Asian industry forum)

 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/london/2006/01/330813.html (Sir Iqbal Sacranie Outrage!)

Yosef and Desi Xpress has circulated a retraction and apology around the gay media. I agree that it is a bit weird labelling older Muslims as old fashioned/conservative and younger Muslims as representing liberal diversity. It's a kind of inverted version of the saying: "show me a young man who's not a socialist and I'll show you a man without a heart. Show me an old man who is a socialist and I'll show you a man without a brain." NB I've heard it with the word socialist replaced with "green", "leftie," "pro-peace" and "liberal" etc. The left has a crap reputation when it comes to LGBT issues and campaigns and I'd like to see the many gay activists within the left speak up a bit more. Yosef is linked with Respect and I think someone from the party should pull him aside and make it clear to him that the sort of garbage that came out of his mouth is not acceptable - in the same way that the party would fiercely condem comments deemed islamophobic.

the apology is on the wesbite: www.desixpress.co.uk

Join in the fascinating debate about the Respect coalition, the SWP and George Galloway.

 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2005/12/330656.html