Posted on 05/06/2016 10:59:39 PM PDT by SleepySimon
A leading Saudi cleric has publicly stated that homosexuality should not be criminally punished, during a visit to Sweden to visit Syrian refugees.
“Even though homosexuality is considered a sin in all the Semitic holy books, it does not require any punishment in this world," Dr Salman al-Ouda said in an interview with the Swedish Sydsvenskan newspaper, adding that homosexuals would be punished "after death."
"One of the fundamentals of Islam is man's freedom to act as he wants," he added.
"But one must also take the consequences."
Homosexuality has long been a controversial topic in much of the Muslim world. LGBT people still face the death penalty in Saudi Arabia.
Ouda, a member of the International Union for Muslim Scholars and director of Islam Today, had previously been viewed as a conservative and was even cited by Osama bin Laden as an authority in the early 90s (though Ouda later publicly rebuked him for his violent activities).
“Homosexuals are not deviating from Islam," continued Ouda in the interview. "Homosexuality is a grave sin, but those who say that homosexuals deviate from Islam are the real deviators.
“By condemning homosexuals to death they are committing a graver sin than homosexuality itself.”
He added that Islam did not "encourage individuals who have same-sex attraction to show their feelings in public."
His comments have already provoked controversy in Saudi Arabia and other parts of the Middle East.
"According to Sharia law, homosexuals should be killed. How can you say homosexuality should not be punishable, Sheikh?" Fadi Matiri, a Saudi citizen commented on Twitter, according to the Jerusalem Post.
Ouda's visit to Sweden had already proved controversial, with some political commentators accusing the cleric of Holocaust denial and, ironically, homophobia.
In the interview, Ouda categorically denied he was a Holocaust denier.
"It is historically documented," he said, adding that there had "also been genocide in Bosnia and now in Syria."
He also condemned the abuse of the concept of Sharia law by Islamic State and al-Qaeda.
"Sharia is a very broad and wide concept and it is a concept that has been kidnapped," he said.
Though still a controversial topic, Ouda is not the first senior Islamic figure to propose changing the legal status of homosexuality.
In an interview with the French journalist Olivier Ravanello, Rachid Ghannouchi - co-founder of the Tunisian Ennahda party - said that homosexuality should be decriminalised in Tunisia.
“We do not approve it [homosexuality]," he said. "But Islam does not spy on people. It protects private life. Everyone should live their lives as they wish. And everyone is responsible for it in front of their creator.”
“Homosexuality is a sin, but those who say homosexuals deviate from Islam are the real deviators.”
Alrighty then. That cleared things up.
In Taqiyya all is permisable.
We don’t throw queers off rooftops in America.
As a proud, straight, normal U.S. Male I think just BEING a homosexual is punishment enough. Straight guys win, homos lose.
They are snakes, all the Wahhabis. They say one thing and do another. The Swedes are damn fools for allowing Muslims in their country, some of them are starting to realize this and this lying hypocrit is doing everything he can to spread disinformation.
>> during a visit to Sweden to visit Syrian refugees.
Islam is a war plan.
We’ll know soon, by whether he has a fatwa put on his hide, or else gets winked and nodded at.
Well, the normal thing (and inescapable thing during man’s sojourn on this mortal coil, at least) is to be a sinner of some kind.
Putting on my C. S. Lewis philosophical hat, I would observe that nobody pursues a sexual perversion for its own sake, but for the sake of something else that can be had from it, something with which God imbued the good creation that is pursued in the wrong way. I would say quite likely if not universally, the right way of pursuing that thing has been sabotaged in that person’s life. An embrace of God acknowledged and experienced to love, care, and save (in preference to damning) is the only true cure.
It’s just the one world government rearing its ugly head.
The left is funny. They profess to love everything gay. On the other hand, the left is likely to hate a truly moderate Muslim (one that even tolerates gays) because that Muslim just wants to live in peace and isn’t a radical jihadist.
The wink and nod will come, for the perversions in which older males force compliance from younger males is part and parcel with the “cohesion” which holds Islam together.
Submission is but another translation of “Islam”, and that opportunity to subjugate and just plain bully the less assertive among their own numbers is eagerly seized and exploited by the pseudo-alpha males. Islam only actually works for those at or relatively close to the top of the food chain.
Note that Islam is highly gender-specific, and only males may hold high positions when it comes down to smash-mouth, bare-knuckled, winner-takes-all struggles for power. The “clerics”, the ayatollahs and imams, pretty much dictate how and where others may fall along the hierarchy of power, with greater power being allotted to the most ruthless among them. I call these the Noble Islamic Gentlemen.
(The hint of sarcasm in that designation is entirely intentional.)
The hierarchy is as strictly enforced as that of the age of feudalism, with the jihadis being the knights who defend that system. Jihadists are given free rein to use as much force as they have at their disposal, whether it be rape, brutalization, mutilation, or outright murder on wide scale, to terrorize and subdue any dissidents among their number or any of the population in lands that have fallen under their domination.
Islam is somewhat peculiar among the ideologies of the world, as they have embraced “religion” as the basis of their authority to perform merciless persecution of their victims, and claim high moral ground in doing so. The “religion” part of their ideology is cobbled together by weaving in elements of previously existing monotheistic religions, and claiming all other religious study to be subject to “error”, and therefor not relevant. In Islam, and in the Koran, there is no reference to either the Ten Commandments, which prohibit a good deal of the behavior so freely exercised by Muslims, or to the Golden Rule, to show respect for others as respect is expected to be shown to yourself. Reciprocity is not a strong impulse among Islamics. They may not have invented the concept “My way or the highway”, but they certainly raised it to a governing policy.
the left is likely to hate a truly moderate Muslim.....No such thing. A moderate Muzzie is a terrorist that hasn’t come to bat yet.
Throw em off real tall buildings?
Homosexuality should not be punished by law, but at the same time, the law shouldn’t pretend that homosexuality is normal.
Bad things happened when governments pretend:
- We pretended that blacks aren’t people and we got slavery.
- Nazis pretended that Jews aren’t people and we got the holocaust.
- We pretend that preborn people aren’t people and we’ve got legalized abortion.
- And now we pretend that homosexuality is normal and it’s causing all kinds of problems from a perversion of marriage to bathroom wars.
Unless it is to "act" as a Christian, a Jew, a Buddhist, a Mormon...
Taqiyya, anyone?
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