Problematic Modernization: The Extent and Formation of Muslim Antipathy to Homosexuality

Abstract

Perhaps most people assume that Islam must be opposed to sexual diversity and gender equality because their first thoughts are of fundamentalist Islam based on rigid interpretations of the Quran. Muslims are not immune to this assumption either, with much of the evidence discussed below indicating a common sense understanding of Islamic prohibition of homosexuality.1 There is, however, a wider public culture in the West in which we associate all of our present mainstream religious traditions with antipathy to homosexuality. The first wave of gay liberation analyses focused keenly on Christianity’s contribution to ideologies of homosexual oppression (Altman, 1993 [1971]) and most accounts of the progress of LGBTIQ rights include the gradual secularization of Western societies as a key explanatory factor (Weeks, 2007). To this day, religiosity seems to be a key explanatory variable in accounting for homophobia amongst populations and, moreover, antigay prejudice often appears as the most extreme form of discrimination in religious populations (Leak and Finken, 2011). In many Western countries, conflicts between religious and queer rights groups have existed since the early days of gay liberation and continue in the present era of increasing queer rights.