Muslims Acceptance of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Issues in Indonesia

Abstract

This article aims to explore netizen criticism of the existence of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in Indonesia. LGBT activists have utilised social media to convey messages of equality, leading to pros and cons in Indonesian society. The urgency of this research is to understand how Muslims accept LGBT issues in Indonesia. This research uses a qualitative method with a media analysis approach. The data collected by the author were 10,000 Twitter tweets of netizens regarding LGBT issues in Indonesia, and then this data was re-analysed by drawing actor networks on Gephi software. The results show that the Qur'an gives a description of the people of Prophet Luth who committed homosexual acts and were labelled as people who behaved stupidly. Then, in another verse, LGBT can damage conventional marriage bonds to harm social morals. Then, MUI firmly rejects LGBT through Fatwa No. 57 Year 2014, which generally aims to maintain moral values prevailing in society. Through analysis using Netlytic, there are several dominant actors—the focus of actor discussions is political and social discussions. LGBT is still not recognised by society and the state because this kind of deviant behaviour is not a freedom that can be openly accepted.