Somalia/U.A.E. - Homosexuality is prohibited in Islam and the institution of marriage is sanctified. The Koran says that women and men are garments to each other. Prophet Mohammed recommended that any youth who could afford should marry or fast. He also recommended Muslim men to marry fertile women so that he could compete with other prophets with the number of his followers. Therefore, procreation seems to be the main objective of marriage in Islam and it is obvious that homosexuality will not increase the number of the faithful.
It must be said however that homosexuality in the Arab and Muslim world is as old as human existence. The holy Koran narrates the story of Lot and condemns his people's homosexual tendencies as transgression. Even companions of the Prophet who used to be away from their wives while fighting in battles sought his permission to use some of them as eunuchs, which the prophet rejected.
Any violation of a woman's sexual sanctity carries great shame and often leads to honor killings. Pederasty or sex with boys is instead met with no more than fleeting scorn. This shows the Muslim community's inherently lax attitude towards homosexuality despite the religion's stance.
Arab and Muslim governments turn a blind eye to homosexual practices as long as it stays in the dark. But conspicuous punishments wait for those who dare to test the limits of the law. At least on several occasions when gays came to the open and in one case a gay marriage was conducted, they had to face the shame of the community and the hand of law. All Islamic countries rejected the inclusion of homosexuals in the UN committees for HIV/AIDs while they objected to any mentioning of same sex references.
For Muslims, the Koran is the eternal word of God. Neither the change of time nor the advance of knowledge could ever challenge the dictates of the holy text. Therefore, homosexuality let alone gay marriage will remain an abhorrent behavior as long as the Koran remains and the same could be said of all adherents to the teachings of conservative schools of Christianity and Judaism.
The conflict on gay marriage is therefore a clash between democracy and theocracy. As democracy adheres to change and social dynamics, it sometimes causes earthquakes that shatter old values and create new ones. In democracy it is man who writes the laws and not some deity. Accordingly, while homosexuals may hear God's word through their physiological needs, religious men and their political cohorts interpret God's intentions from centuries old scriptures. But who knows on which side God would be if his lordship was at stake in a closely run election in which the gay community were the deciding factor.
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