{"id":87789,"date":"2013-05-20T22:38:51","date_gmt":"2013-05-20T17:08:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=87789"},"modified":"2013-05-20T22:44:16","modified_gmt":"2013-05-20T17:14:16","slug":"as-a-muslim-i-struggle-with-the-idea-of-homosexuality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/as-a-muslim-i-struggle-with-the-idea-of-homosexuality\/","title":{"rendered":"As A Muslim, I Struggle With The Idea Of Homosexuality"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve made homophobic remarks in the past, writes Mehdi Hasan, but now I\u2019ve grown up \u2014 and reconciled my Islamic beliefs with my attitude to gay rights, writes\u00a0Mehdi Hasan.<\/p>\n<p>I am writing this because I want to live in a society in which all minorities \u2013 Jews, Muslims, gay people and others \u2013 are protected from violence and abuse, from demonisation and discrimination. And because I want to apologise for any hurt or offence that I may have caused to my gay brothers and lesbian sisters.<\/p>\n<p>And yes, whatever our differences \u2013 straight or gay, religious or atheist, male or female \u2013 we are all brothers and sisters. As the great Muslim leader of the 7th century and son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad, Ali ibn Abi Talib, once declared: \u201cRemember that people are of two kinds; they are either your brothers in religion or your brothers in mankind.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Read more in the <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.newstatesman.com\/mehdi-hasan\/2013\/05\/muslim-i-struggle-idea-homosexuality-i-oppose-homophobia\">NewStatesman<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/as-a-muslim-i-struggle-with-the-idea-of-homosexuality\/mehdi-hasan\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-87790\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-87790\" title=\"Mehdi Hasan\" src=\"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/Mehdi-Hasan.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"224\" height=\"223\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/Mehdi-Hasan.jpg 224w, https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/Mehdi-Hasan-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/Mehdi-Hasan-50x50.jpg 50w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 224px) 100vw, 224px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>*Mehdi Hasan is a contributing writer for the New Statesman and the co-author of Ed: The Milibands and the Making of a Labour Leader. He was the New Statesman&#8217;s senior editor (politics) from 2009-12.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":87790,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,3402],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-87789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colombotelegraph","category-editors-choice"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>As A Muslim, I Struggle With The Idea Of Homosexuality - Colombo Telegraph<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/as-a-muslim-i-struggle-with-the-idea-of-homosexuality\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"As A Muslim, I Struggle With The Idea Of Homosexuality - 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