as a member of the jewish community, i am pretty much in the loop when it comes to information about what relationship its different streams have with the g/l/b/t/q community in its midst. however, i know nothing about the g/l/b/t/q community in the moslem world. i was thus extremely interested to see a story today about a documentary examining an aspect of that very subject. a gay indian filmmaker named parvez sharma has made a film called 'jihad for love', which was premiered this week at the toronto film festival.
"The film ... focuses on a few dozen men and women who seek to reconcile their sexuality with life as Muslims. The title defines jihad as personal struggle, rather than as holy war ... One of those shown in the movie is South African Muhsin Hendricks, a gay Imam who "came out" to a storm of protest and angry phone-ins to local radio stations, including callers calling for his death. In the film, he argues that censure of homosexuals from Islamic texts is a censure of forced male rape, rather than of loving relations between two men, and he's had discussion sessions with a local Islamic welfare council."
the yahoo report in full (by janet guttsman) may be found here.
from the grauniad
sharma's blog on the film
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