Denmark considering banning protests burning Quran and other religious texts

2023/08/01 Leave a comment

Hard to argue that book burning is a freedom of speech issue as there are other ways to express views than unnecessarily inflaming tensions (although some tensions will always be inflamed or politicized as the Satanic Verses and the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons illustrate):

The Danish foreign ministry said whilst protecting freedom of expression is crucial, such protests benefit extremists and pose a security threat.

Copenhagen is looking at legal means to intervene in some circumstances, including protests outside embassies.

Sweden’s prime minister also said work on a similar process has begun there.

Both Scandinavian countries have come under pressure in recent weeks, after authorities gave permission for a series of controversial protests where Islam’s holy book was destroyed, stoking diplomatic tensions with several Muslim-majority nations.

In its statement, Denmark’s foreign ministry said it wants to explore intervening in some protests where “other countries, cultures, and religions are being insulted, and where this could have significant negative consequences for Denmark” – including security concerns.

But the Danish government emphasised free speech was a fundamental value and any change must be done “within the framework of the constitutionally protected freedom of expression and in a manner that does not change the fact that freedom of expression in Denmark has very broad scope”.

The statement also specifically acknowledged the impact these controversial protests have had on Denmark’s international reputation, repeating the government’s earlier condemnation of burning religious texts.

These protests have reached a level where Denmark “is being viewed as a country that facilitates insult and denigration of the cultures, religions, and traditions of other countries” in many parts of the world, it added.

In a separate statement, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said a similar process was already underway and confirmed he had been in close contact with his Danish counterpart Mette Frederiksen.

“We have also started to analyse the legal situation already… in order to consider measures to strengthen our national security and the security of Swedes in Sweden and around the world,” he wrote on Instagram.

Both statements followed several high-profile incidents where the Quran was burned or stamped on in recent weeks.

In June, an Iraqi Christian refugee living in Sweden, burned a copy of the religious text outside Stockholm’s central mosque.

The man was then given permission to destroy a Quran for a second time last week, which led to Sweden evacuating its embassy staff from Baghdad after the building was stormed and set fire to by protesters

Following this, last week two Danish far-right activists stamped on a Quran and set it alight in a tin foil tray next to an Iraqi flag on the ground outside Iraq’s embassy in Copenhagen.

Source: Denmark considering banning protests burning Quran and other religious texts

Filed under Multiculturalism, Religion Tagged with ,

The Right Has Become Post-Religious

2023/07/21 Leave a comment

Interesting discussion:

From 2016 onward, the relationship between conservative Christianity and MAGA-style populism has generated a wide range of reactions, few of them dispassionate. Center-right evangelicals lament the populist strand of the religious right and distinguish it from the moral strand. Critics on the left argue that the populist and moral strands were always one and the same. They declare MAGA politics to be the culmination of a radicalized religious right, and issue blanket condemnations. Postliberal Christian thinkers see a religious populist backlash as the natural consequence of the excesses of American liberalism. They exult in the prospective crumbling of the liberal system, hope for a robust Christian social order to replace it, and issue calls to arms.

These perspectives contain varying degrees of insight, but none is quite satisfactory as an explanation of how we got here. In his new book The Godless Crusade: Religion, Populism, and Right-Wing Identity Politics in the West (Cambridge University Press 2023), Tobias Cremer offers a different interpretation of the conspicuous religious element in modern populist politics. He argues that across Western democracies, populist parties are increasingly employing religious symbolism and rhetoric in an identitarian rather than a religious way. What appears to be an embrace of Christianity is more a celebration of cultural markers (say, Christian history and architecture) used to define themselves against outsiders than an expression of Christian beliefs or moral commitments—Christendom without Christianity. Mobilizing statistics, political analysis, and the content of interviews with 114 political and religious leaders in Germany, France, and the United States, Cremer makes a strong case that religious-themed populism is not the result of religious revival or even backlash, but rather of secularization. This work marks a key contribution to conversations about religious populism and Christian nationalism.

Secular Uses of the Sacred

Cremer’s argument is fourfold. First, the old economic and moral cleavages that used to shape party politics in Western democracies are being supplanted by a new division between cosmopolitans and communitarians. Cosmopolitans embrace globalization, individualism, and multiculturalism, whereas communitarians place greater value on local attachments, inherited identities, and majority rights. The latter group, finding themselves culturally maligned by internal elites and demographically threatened by external immigrants, seek redress in the form of a combative, “us vs. them” populist style of politics. Second, right-wing populists wield Christian symbolism as a way of marking cultural identity rather than religious belief. For populist leaders seeking to forge a shared national identity in a diverse population, Christianity serves as a symbolically powerful “lowest common denominator” as well as a boundary marker against Muslim immigrants. Third, and crucially, populist use of religious symbolism resonates most strongly with nonreligious voters, while practicing Christians are comparatively immune. Fourth, this “religious immunity” to right-wing populism is dependent on the availability of appealing political alternatives for religious voters, as well as the extent to which religious leaders discourage support for populist parties among their followers.

Cremer illustrates these points with an in-depth examination of the cases of Germany, France, and the United States, each of which receives its own section of the book. All three of these countries saw a rise in the demand for populist politics during the 2010s— Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) in Germany, Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National (RN) in France, and Trump’s Republican Party in the United States. In each of these cases, populist use of religious symbols has been highly visible. AfD supporters march in Dresden singing hymns and wielding large crosses. French demonstrators by the thousands, organized by RN, deposit flowers at the feet of a statue of the country’s national saint, Joan of Arc, in veneration. In the United States, crowds wielding bibles and waving Christian flags storm the Capitol building in defiance of the outcome of the 2020 election. Observers of these spectacles draw the seemingly reasonable conclusion that they represent a radicalized religious right in the democratic West.

But this conclusion, Cremer argues, is mistaken. In each of these countries, populist use of religious symbolism has coincided with the marginalization of Christian belief and practice within populist parties. In Germany, AfD expresses skepticism toward the nation’s system of state-supported churches and resists the high social and political status of religious leaders, preferring a reduced role for religion in the public square. France’s RN similarly embraces an extreme form of public secularism, or laïcité. Neither AfD nor RN shows any interest in a conservative social agenda on such issues as same-sex marriage or abortion. Indeed, many statements by populist party leaders explicitly identify the kind of Christianity they advocate as cultural or identitarian rather than religious, and reject the prospect of their parties being influenced by Christian doctrine. While the United States differs in some key respects, the Trump administration shared with its European counterparts an elevation of nonreligious or populist figures over religious ones. Most religious leaders had little access to the Trump White House, and while he maintained an evangelical Faith Advisory Board, Cremer’s interviewees suggest this represented a strategic effort to curb religious criticism rather than any serious desire to institute a Christian policy agenda. In Trump’s administration, the Steve Bannon wing loomed larger than the Mike Pence wing (and current tensions between the Trump campaign and the pro-life movement suggest that not much has changed). Similarly, in AfD and RN Christian members are marginalized while secular, atheist, or neo-pagan strands of the parties wield greater influence.

Religious Immunity

Interviews with religious leaders show that the relationship between religion and right-wing populism is chilly on both sides. In Germany, Catholic and Protestant leaders have been consistent and outspoken critics of AfD, instituting strong social taboos against populist support among their members. Until recently, the French Catholic Church similarly denounced RN without equivocation, even denying sacraments to some of the party’s politicians. Cremer credits strong social taboos against participation in populist politics instituted by religious leaders for the fact that churchgoing Catholics and Protestants in these countries have historically exhibited low support for these parties, indicating a “religious immunity” effect.

Early in the 2016 primaries, this effect was in evidence in the United States as well. Several prominent religious leaders declared Trump an unfit candidate for office, and in the primary vote, churchgoing Republicans were substantially less likely to support Trump than their religiously disengaged co-partisans. Yet by the time of the general election, religious voters were some of his most loyal supporters. Cremer identifies several factors that explain this reversal. First, party loyalty—religious support for the GOP was too entrenched to be disrupted by the nomination of a decidedly irreligious candidate. Second, a lack of alternatives—in a two-party system, the only other serious contender was a Democratic Party with a secularist stance and socially liberal policy platform wholly unacceptable to many religious voters. Third, the Trump campaign made inroads with evangelical leaders and made policy commitments that were appealing to the religious right. Fourth, given the diffuse and non-hierarchical nature of America’s churches, there was a lack of religious leaders with sufficient ability and influence to oppose the right-wing populist movement as clergy in France and Germany had done. These factors in combination undermined the “religious immunity” effect in the United States.

Ultimately, Cremer is positing a Europeanization of American politics in which social cleavages have less to do with economics or morality than the value of national and cultural identity. This shift is captured in a quote from sociologist Eric Kaufmann: “During the Bush years European observers saw American politics as profoundly alien. By 2016 it was to become thoroughly familiar.” American analysts have struggled to provide an accurate diagnosis because they are thinking in categories of class struggles and culture wars that are becoming outdated. For insight into our political moment, we should look across the pond.

Post-religious Right

With respect to the question of “how we got here” in the American case, Cremer’s key insight is that Trump—and more broadly, the style of politics he represents—did not rise to power on the shoulders of the religious right, but rather the post-religious right. Indeed, his presidency was made possible by the very process of secularization that the religious right has long sought to combat. Trump’s coalition may instead be viewed as an alliance between the religious and post-religious right, with the former playing the role of junior partner. Counterintuitively, the conspicuous Christian symbolism present in such populist settings as MAGA rallies and the January 6 storming of the Capitol does not reflect a resurgent and radicalized religious right, but rather one that has been eclipsed by more secular right-wing forces. This understanding offers an important corrective to reductionistic accounts of a Christian nationalist monolith that have dominated scholarship in this area.

While Cremer’s theory goes a long way toward helping us make sense of the past decade’s bewildering political developments, however, it pays little heed to evidence of at least partial overlap between the religious and populist right. Religion data scientist Ryan Burge has shown that in the 2016 Republican primaries, 44 percent of weekly-or-more churchgoers voted for Trump over evangelical candidates like Ted Cruz. This is, if not an outright endorsement, hardly a stinging rebuke. Figures with unimpeachable religious right credentials such as Eric Metaxas have come out as full-throated Trump supporters, while center-right evangelicals like David French and Tim Alberta lament the MAGA-fication of their religious communities. Clearly for many Americans, the tension between their religious commitments and populist politics is surmountable.

On the other side of the ledger, the religious right gained undeniable policy victories from their alliance with the populist right. The religious conservative Holy Grail of the overturning of Roe v. Wade would not have happened if religious voters had withheld support for Trump in the 2016 general election. These facts suggest a possibility absent in France or Germany, where weekly worship attendance is in single digits, but perhaps present in the United States: that of a populist religious right. The populist political style is not incompatible with either religious commitment or social conservatism, and social boundaries can be drawn around religion and morality as easily as birthplace or ethnicity. GOP lawmakers in red states like Texas and Montana offer a taste of what a populist politics that emphasizes religion over ethnicity might look like. Cremer rightly draws our focus to the distinctions and tensions between the religious and populist right, but we should also not lose sight of the prospect of their synthesis.

This caveat aside, The Godless Crusade offers an elegant, compelling, and well-researched account of the overlooked role of secularized religious-themed populism on both sides of the Atlantic—one refreshingly free of pontificating. It deserves to be widely read. Cremer both builds on and challenges existing accounts. His book can create more fruitful conversations about conflicts over the role of religion in the public sphere.

Source: The Right Has Become Post-Religious

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Khan: All women and girls should be allowed play soccer – regardless of their religion

2023/07/19 Leave a comment

Indeed:

On the eve of the Women’s World Cup, as soccer fans cheer our talented female athletes, let’s not forget the many women and girls worldwide who are being denied the opportunity to play the beautiful game.

Here in Canada in 2007, 11-year-old Asmahan Mansour was set to enter a tournament match in Laval, Que., when a referee barred her from the soccer pitch for wearing a hijab. There had been no issues in previous games; this ref insisted on following a memo from the Quebec Soccer Federation (QSF) forbidding all religious headgear. Asmahan’s teammates, their parents, and coach rallied in her support by forfeiting the match and withdrawing from the tournament in protest – as did four other Ottawa-based teams.

The QSF insisted it was a safety issue. The matter made it all the way to FIFA, which initially upheld the hijab ban, then reversed it in 2012. In the interim, the Canadian Soccer Association allowed the hijab, provided it met safety standards.

In 2013, the QSF banned Sikh turbans, basing the decision on its interpretation of FIFA’s rules. Turbaned children in Quebec could play in their backyards, but not in official matches. The QSF backed down after its suspension by the Canadian Soccer Association, claiming it was all a misunderstanding. Soccer peace ensued; children from all backgrounds can now play “the beautiful game” across Canada. It was admirable to see the pushback against discrimination by ordinary Canadians, who insisted on inclusion and fair play for all children.

Unfortunately, women and girls are denied the opportunity to play the beautiful game elsewhere in the world. Afghanistan comes to mind. And France, where since 2016, the French Football Federation (FFF) has banned any player, coach or referee from wearing the hijab – contrary to FIFA rules. The FFF insists it is in keeping with the official French policy of laïcité, which restricts religious expression in the public sphere. To paraphrase a memorable Seinfeld character, the FFF has declared “No soccer for you!” to hijabi footballers.

This policy has had a painful impact on many aspiring French Muslim female soccer players, who have faced a choice between the sport they love and their faith. In response, Les Hijabeuses, a collective of French female Muslim soccer players, was formed in 2020 with the aim of ensuring that all women can play the sport they love. They’ve launched petitions, gathering support from the broader sports community (including Nike). The members and their allies play soccer together, connect with other French teams and provide training sessions to encourage other young Muslim women to get into the sport. They have gone to court to try to overturn the ban, citing FIFA’s ruling.

Last month, the public rapporteur of France’s highest administrative court (Le Conseil d’État) recommended annulment of the ban, stating that wearing the hijab is neither “proselytism” nor “provocation.” Nor is “neutrality” required for soccer players, since they are not public servants. According to the rapporteur, religious symbols are already present: players cross themselves before entering the pitch. The rapporteur’s recommendation is usually adopted by Le Conseil.

Surprisingly, Le Conseil upheld the ban, in order “to guarantee the smooth running of matches and prevent any confrontation,” while acknowledging this limits freedom of expression and conviction. Without a hint of irony, the FFF welcomed the ruling, stating it would reaffirm “its total commitment to combating all forms of discrimination.” If laïcité was meant to supplant the Catholic Church, it still denies the personal agency of women.

The ban is even more galling given that France is the only European country that excludes hijabis from playing in most competitive domestic sports, and it is unclear whether foreign players with hijabs will be allowed to compete in the 2024 Paris Olympics. Why is France denying Olympic opportunities for its own hijab-clad athletes?

On the eve of the Women’s World Cup, there has been thundering silence from FIFA and national soccer federations regarding the French exclusion. Contrast this to the protests raised against one of the tournament’s sponsors: for the country’s treatment of women’s rights defenders, FIFA’s revoked the sponsorship of Saudi Arabia’s state tourism authority. National soccer federations should mount a united stand against France’s blatant discrimination, with the Canadian Soccer Association taking the lead. FIFA should at least sanction the FFF for violating official FIFA policy.

Listen to Asmahan Mansour’s young Ottawa teammates in 2007: “I like to play soccer, but Azzy is my friend, and I don’t want to play if she’s not going to play,” one said. “If one person can’t play soccer because of her religion, it just wouldn’t be fair. Inside is what matters, not the outside,” said another.

Sheema Khan is the author of Of Hockey and Hijab: Reflections of a Canadian Muslim Woman.

Source: All women and girls should be allowed play soccer – regardless of their religion

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Paradkar: Muslims who fight against LGBTQ2+ inclusion are hurting many — including themselves

2023/07/08 Leave a comment

Of note:

A viral audio clip of an Edmonton teacher admonishing a Muslim student for avoiding Pride events perfectly encapsulates a dilemma that’s worth wrestling with. How does one tolerate — or, better still, tackle — the intolerance of some members of a group that has itself faced so much intolerance.

At least part of the answer is simple: not with the very discrimination you rail against. 

Less simple, and also wrapped up in the answer, is a layered understanding of how religion, a source of support for many, can also be a basis of discrimination.

In the two-minute audio clip from last month, an unnamed Londonderry Junior High School teacher told a student his behaviour was unacceptable, and referenced Uganda, where intolerance and criminalization of homosexuality has been boosted by evangelical Christians. 

She also pointed out there were no complaints when Ramadan was acknowledged at school. 

“It goes two ways. If you want to be respected for who you are, if you don’t want to suffer prejudice for your religion, your colour of skin or whatever, then you better give it back to people who are different from you. That’s how it works,” said the teacher. 

She should have stopped there.

It’s not uncommon to see individuals from equity-seeking groups aligning with discriminatory actions; the plaintiffs in front of the U.S. Supreme Court that struck down affirmative action last week were Asian-American. 

Of course, Muslims are not a monolith. Nor are they the only faith group to denounce LGBTQ2+ teachings at school. On June 27, a group of Muslim, Jewish and Christian parents of students at a Montgomery county school demanded that their kids be able to opt-out of the sex-ed curriculum.

But Muslim opposition to Pride in Canada and the U.S. is not restricted to one Edmonton student’s choice to skip Pride-related events, or students routinely using provincial exemptions and not attending sex-ed classes, or parents leading protests against school boards for gay-inclusive teachings and other forms of gay expression.

It also affects policy. Residents of Hamtramck, Mich., who celebrated their multiculturalism when they voted in a Muslim-majority city council during Donald Trump’s Islamophobic campaign rhetoric in 2015, were dismayed to find that council passing legislation in June that banned flying the Pride flag on city properties. 

It has become a knotty issue involving religious beliefs, political expediency and flirtation with outright hate. It raises questions about whether freedom of religious expression is more important than freedom from discrimination and paves a pathway to shaking hands with the devil. 

It is notable because individual intolerance was in a way sanctified by a statement by North American Islamic scholars that declared queer life sinful. In addition, at least one senior member of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, an important civil rights advocacy group, supported parents seeking book bans and opt-out options.

Perhaps these examples of opposition come from a loud minority among Muslims or perhaps the sentiments are more mainstream. In any case, these actions risk being weaponized for a larger, insidious cause that could end up hurting Muslims here in the long run.

Even if sex-ed exemptions are allowed in Alberta, I’m glad the Londonderry teacher challenged the disdain toward LGBTQ2+ groups.

But she didn’t end it there. Instead, what she said next has been gleefully and understandably seized upon by conservatives as proof of hypocrisy among progressives.

She said, “We believe people can marry whoever they want. That is in the law. And if you don’t think that should be the law you can’t be Canadian. You don’t belong here.”

I think we can all agree that we can’t beat homophobia with Islamophobia or racism. What are the odds that a homophobic white child would have been told “You don’t belong in Canada”? 

The National Council for Canadian Muslims lambasted the teacher’s comments as “deeply Islamophobic, inappropriate and harassing behaviour.”

But it did not weigh in on the question of whether the student should have dodged Pride events. 

Intolerance against queer identities has surfaced over fear of a “woke gender ideology” — a fear manufactured and stoked by the white Christian far-right, expressed under the guise of protecting children. 

In this twisted thinking, children being aware that a small minority of people are not heterosexual or that an even smaller minority doesn’t identify with the gender they were assigned at birth, is considered indoctrination or even pornographic corruption. (But gay and trans children and adults being surrounded and ridiculed by heterosexual cis people is apparently totally safe.) A miniscule fraction of that minority who might regret transitioning or might have had bad experiences with gender-affirming medical procedures is amplified as proof positive of hell having broken loose.

And what do Islamic experts say about the issue? Some 300 Islamic scholars and preachers across North America co-signed a statementlate in May to clarify their religious position on sexual and gender ethics. It was damning: homosexuality and transgenderism are not permissible.

“By a decree from God, sexual relations are permitted within the bounds of marriage, and marriage can only occur between a man and a woman,” said the statement titled Navigating Differences: Clarifying Sexual and Gender Ethics in Islam. 

I’m not qualified to offer a theological critique of Islamic beliefs. But this is a column about justice for the most vulnerable, and I don’t believe justice can be served by relying on principles of the past to moralize today.

That sentence by the Islamic scholars echoes the beliefs of the World Congress of Families created by American conservatives back in 1997, which now exists as the International Organization for the Family.

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the congress “pushed for restrictions to LGBT rights under the guise of the defense of the ‘natural family’ — defined as heterosexual married couples with their biological children.” 

The organization, which was created by the Christian right-wing, is another example of how religion is used to discriminate against others and it exists today, as the SPLC says, “as a political power broker as an anti-LGBT group in its own right.”

That group of people who blame gay lifestyles and feminist liberation for a declining white population also subscribe to the conspiracy theory of the Great Replacement of white people by Black and brown people.

In this process of rejecting LGBTQ2+ rights, conservative Muslims have linked hands with the very people who demonized them for decades.

But Edward Ahmed Mitchell, a deputy director at CAIR, calls the idea of that alliance “ludicrous,” and said parents were standing up for their religious rights “without prompting from the right and without fear of backlash from the left.”

“What matters is whether the cause itself is just,” he said in a Twitter statement.

Not only does his stance risks isolating gay and trans Muslims, the scholars’ statement that they are sinners could well be psychologically crippling at a time of rising hate against people like them.

The logical extension of the Islamic scholars’ argument is also damaging for all Muslims in North America.

For instance, the statement says, “As a religious minority that frequently experiences bigotry and exclusion, we reject the notion that moral disagreement amounts to intolerance or incitement of violence.”

By that token, could a law banning head coverings — based on a moral disagreement with seeing veiled Muslim women — no longer be criticized as being intolerant?

When it says: “Peaceful coexistence does not necessitate agreement, acceptance, affirmation, promotion, or celebration,” could that not be turned around to mean religious accommodation in schools or celebrating Muslim holidays is not required to signal acceptance of Muslims? 

It says, “there is an increasing push to promote LGBTQ-centric values among children through legislation and regulations, disregarding parental consent,” as if this exact same objection could not be used by the far-right to decry depictions of Muslims in schoolbooks as a sample of wokeness.

But leaders of the white far-right, sensing weakness in the solidarity of rights groups, have switched tacks for the moment.

Fox News host Laura Ingraham, a far-right hero, who once said the “dual loyalties” of Muslim refugees to the Qur’an that would lead them to “to try to blow us up” is now praising Muslim parents who are opposed to their children reading books with LGBTQ2+ themes. 

For white supremacists, expanding their base this way, or even appearing to grow support for their “causes”, offers a two-pronged advantage. One, images with visibly Muslim people in their midst make for an effective cover, similar to when the Proud Boys propped up the African-Cuban Enrique Tarrio as their “chairman” as if to say: See, no white supremacy here. 

And two, it’s an effective divide-and-conquer strategy. When they need to invoke the Great Replacement fear again, the anti-racist rights-seeking groups will have already been disorganized and weakened. 

To be clear, Muslims who support ultra-conservative ideologies around sexuality are not naïve dupes. They are simply being as closed-minded as conservatives of any religion.

Where is the compassion and mercy that religions are so famous for?

I don’t much care for religion nor do I particularly want it flapping in my face. Even so, I stick my neck out to speak up for the freedom of believers.

In times of disaster and injustice, in my experience, Muslims (and Sikhs) are often the first to show up to give support. That may be why I’m doubly disappointed by this not insignificant opposition to LGBTQ2+ rights.

As the Londonderry teacher pointed out, respect is reciprocal. The right to practise religion cannot trump the human right to sexuality. Because ultimately, religion and religiosity are a choice. Sexual orientation and gender identity are not. 

Source: Paradkar: Muslims who fight against LGBTQ2+ inclusion are hurting many — including themselves

Filed under LGBTQ, Multiculturalism, Religion Tagged with , ,

New Canadians more religious than their natural-born counterparts: study

2023/07/08 Leave a comment

Of note. Earlier studies have also shown this. Not much new here given same observations 10 years ago by Pew Research, Canada’s Changing Religious Landscape:

Newcomers to Canada tend to be more religious than their natural-born counterparts, a new study suggests.

The study, released Thursday by think tank Cardus, suggests many new immigrants to Canada hold deeper religious beliefs than those born in this country, attend religious services more often, and say those in public positions should be free to integrate their faith into their words and actions.

“We’re now anticipating about 1.5 million new immigrants coming into the country by 2025,” said Rev. Dr. Andrew Bennett, Cardus’ faith communities program director.

“If you look at the the data for new immigrants, disproportionately they’re coming from countries where religion is a much more public reality than in most western democracies.”

The report, Bennett said, suggests that religion plays a larger role of in the lives of newcomers compared to those born in Canada.

“New immigrants are more likely to express their religion publicly than non-immigrant Canadians,” he said. “They’re more likely to attend religious services, they’re more likely to desire to have their children educated according to their religious tradition.” 

Data published by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada points to India as this country’s top source of immigrants in 2022, with 118,095 new people arriving from that nation last year.

That was followed by China (31,815), Afghanistan (28,735), Nigeria (22,085) and the Philippines (22,070).

Rounding out the top 10 were France, Pakistan, Iran, the United States and Syria.

The government’s 2023-2025 immigration plan, which was released last November, aims to bestow permanent residency status upon 465,000 new immigrants in 2023, 485,000 in 2024 and an even 500,000 in 2025.

The Cardus report, which used survey data gathered in partnership with the Angus Reid Institute, focused on the differences between contemporary Canadians’ religious beliefs and those of newcomers, and how recent arrivals view the role of faith in everyday life in Canada.

The study’s authors used the poll’s responses to drill down the results into a “spectrum of spirituality” index — classifying respondents into four categories: those who are religiously committed, privately faithful, spiritually uncertain and non-religious.

Among those who consider themselves “religiously committed,” only 14 per cent were born in Canada, while 28 per cent were born outside of the country.

Those who say they are “privately faithful” were a bit more evenly spread — 18 per cent of natural-born Canadians compared to 22 per cent of those born outside of Canada. Nearly half of those born in Canada self-identify as “spiritually uncertain,” compared to 36 per cent of those born elsewhere.

For those who consider themselves non-religious, 15 per cent of foreign-born Canadian residents fell into that category compared to 20 per cent of Canadian-born citizens.

As for those who say they believe in a higher power, 72 per cent of Canadian immigrants say they believe in God, compared to 64 per cent of non-immigrant Canadian citizens.

While data suggests most Canadians consider passing their religious beliefs on to their children to be important, foreign-born Canadians tend to hold this view more frequently than those born here.

A little over a quarter of those who strongly agree with the importance of teaching religion to their children were born outside of Canada, compared to 18 per cent of those born here.

Of those who strongly disagreed, 20 per cent were born in Canada compared to 16 per cent who weren’t.

Immigrants are also more likely to read sacred texts such as the Bible, Adi Granth or Qu’ran — around 20 per cent of immigrants say they consult their holy books between every day or a few times per week, a three-fold increase compared to Canada-born citizens who hold the same beliefs.

Just under 60 per cent of Canadian-born respondents say they never read sacred texts, compared to 36 per cent of those born outside of the country.

A growing number of foreign-born residents also see more importance in public figures integrating their faith into their work.

When asked if Canadians who hold public office should feel free to both speak and act based on their religious beliefs, 44 per cent of respondents who agreed with that sentiment were born outside of Canada, compared to 33 per cent who were born in Canada.

Maintaining a firm separation between church and state is a sentiment shared by 67 per cent of respondents born in Canada, while 56 per cent of those born outside of Canada agreed.

Canada’s ambitious immigration targets are sparking concern over the strain these new residents will put on our country’s already stretched infrastructure.

“The population (growth) is positive, but our infrastructure has to catch up and has to be able to keep pace, or else all of the types of frustrations and issues that we’re seeing today are only going to be magnified,” University of Toronto’s School of Cities’ Matti Siemiatycki told National Post in December.

Source: New Canadians more religious than their natural-born counterparts: study

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Lisée: Solidarité obligatoire

2023/06/30 Leave a comment

Interesting discussion on activism, education, freedom of conscience in the context of LGBTQ in schools:

Parmi les mille raisons qui me rendent fier d’être Québécois figure notre tolérance précoce, puis notre défense résolue, des homosexuels. Ne dit-on pas que, sans nous, le Canada aurait été beaucoup plus lent à légaliser le mariage pour tous ?

Cette particularité québécoise ressortait d’un monologue prononcé lors d’un gala Just For Laughs par l’humoriste américaine Sarah Silverman. Je cite de mémoire : « Aux États-Unis, on utilise des codes pour désigner nos quartiers gais. Le “District Castro” [San Francisco] ou “Greenwich” [New York]. Pourquoi ? Pour que les rednecks, qui sont des imbéciles, ne sachent pas où les trouver. Mais vous, votre village gai s’appelle “le village gai” ! Vous faites exprès ou quoi ? »

L’adhésion des Québécois à la cause gaie fut progressive, dans la société, la culture, les familles. Un processus d’acclimatation, d’adhésion, de normalisation. Mais il nous vient désormais de notre environnement nord-américain des signaux dont il faut se préoccuper. Il s’agit de l’injonction de solidarité. Il ne suffit pas d’accepter, mais d’afficher obligatoirement son appui à la cause. Parfois sous peine de sanctions.

On célèbre à Montréal la fierté gaie en août, mais cette année, aux États-Unis et au Canada, la tradition de faire de juin le Mois de la fierté gaie a pris de l’ampleur, notamment dans les écoles. En Ontario, le ministre (conservateur) de l’Éducation a produit une directive affirmant qu’il « incombe à tous les conseils scolaires de veiller à ce que tous les élèves — plus particulièrement les élèves 2SLGBTQ+ — se sentent soutenus, reflétés dans leurs écoles », ce qui est admirable. Mais il a ajouté : « Cela inclut la célébration du Mois de la fierté. »

La nuance est cruciale entre l’acceptation et la promotion, entre l’éducation et le prosélytisme. Nos chartes protègent la « liberté de conscience », ce qui inclut le droit de ne pas être d’accord avec la norme, pour peu qu’on ne commette aucun geste illégal. Sur les bancs d’école, on est certes tenus d’apprendre la norme et de la respecter. Mais est-on obligé de la célébrer ? Si la fête nationale du Québec tombait le premier juin, obligerait-on tous les enfants à porter des macarons fleurdelisés et de marcher dans les rues, drapeau en mains ? C’est ce qu’on a demandé à des enfants du primaire de Vancouver, l’an dernier, pour le Mois de la fierté.

On a assisté cette année, en Ontario, à un refus massif de parents musulmans de laisser leurs enfants participer à ces célébrations. Ce qui a notamment valu à ceux d’Ottawa une directive stricte des autorités scolaires interdisant le droit de retrait aux enfants. « Les droits de la personne ne sont pas ouverts au débat ou à la participation sélective » est-il écrit. En Nouvelle-Écosse, l’enregistrement d’une enseignante sermonnant un étudiant musulman qui refusait de participer aux activités de la Pride a fait grand bruit. Elle y affirme que « nous croyons que les gens peuvent épouser qui ils veulent, c’est dans la loi, et si tu ne penses pas que ça devrait être la loi, tu ne peux pas être Canadien. Tu n’as pas ta place ici, et je suis sérieuse ».

L’imam Sikander Hashmi rapporte dans le National Post que « les élèves d’une école secondaire d’Ottawa ont déclaré que le personnel gardait les portes lors d’une assemblée du Mois de la fierté pour s’assurer que personne ne partait, tandis que d’autres patrouillaient dans les couloirs et qu’un autre vérifiait même le stationnement pour trouver les élèves qui refusaient d’y assister. Un parent a rapporté que son enfant de 3e année dans une autre école s’était fait dire qu’il ne pouvait pas aller en récréation à moins qu’il ne dessine un arc-en-ciel. Des parents m’ont dit que d’autres élèves avaient été menacés d’expulsion s’ils ne participaient pas aux activités du Mois de la fierté ».

L’imam est particulièrement remonté contre un livret conçu spécialement pour ses jeunes ouailles intitulé « Je suis musulman mais je ne suis peut-être pas hétéro ». Pas moins du tiers des élèves du primaire de la ville de London, à forte concentration musulmane, se sont absentés durant une journée consacrée à la dénonciation de l’homophobie en mai. Puis, on a vu un petit groupe de mères musulmanes encourager leurs enfants à piétiner de petits drapeaux arc-en-ciel. Une scène qu’on peut résumer en deux mots : haine et obscurantisme.

Chers lecteurs, vous me savez très critique des religions, notamment pour leur misogynie et leur homophobie. Je suis à la fois favorable à l’arrêt des subventions pour les écoles à vocation religieuse et je tiens, pour le bien des enfants, à ce qu’aucun ne soit exempté de l’enseignement commun. Cependant, on ne peut vivre ensemble sans respect de la liberté de conscience. Je récuse donc l’embrigadement dans des causes, fussent-elles les miennes. Comme la religion, le militantisme doit s’afficher et se pratiquer à ses heures, pas à l’école ou dans l’État. Le refus d’appliquer ce principe nourrit puissamment le ressac conservateur dont nous sommes témoins et qui arrivera sous peu dans une école près de chez vous.

En fait, cela y est déjà. Au Québec, des comités formés d’élèves et soutenus par des profs et des administrateurs volontaires se donnent le mandat de faire appliquer la théorie du genre, dont je parlais dans une précédente chronique, dans l’école en entier. Les demandes pour des toilettes non binaires au primaire et au secondaire sont courantes et il arrive que des surveillantes plus pointilleuses sur le respect de l’intimité des unes et des autres se fassent « traiter de transphobes par des enfants de 12 ans », me rapporte un enseignant.

Il existe dans plusieurs de nos écoles des AGIS, pour Alliance genres, identités, sexualités. Leur création est recommandée par le gouvernement canadien. Elles ont pour but de transformer l’école entière en un « lieu sûr ». Les trousses pédagogiques mises à la disposition par l’organisme AGIS reprennent les thèmes et le vocabulaire d’usage sur la théorie du genre. C’est chouette : les étudiants intéressés à mettre un comité sur pied peuvent facilement recevoir une subvention de 500 $. Desjardins fait d’ailleurs partie des commanditaires de l’initiative.

J’ai sous les yeux une lettre envoyée ce printemps aux parents par un directeur d’école secondaire de Laval. Il les invite à soutenir l’initiative visant à « susciter la solidarité et mobiliser les élèves et le personnel scolaire à devenir des personnes alliées ». La Fédération autonome de l’enseignement organise un « défi des personnes alliées » pour ses syndicats enseignants qui déploieront dans leurs écoles le drapeau arc-en-ciel, des macarons, des kiosques de promotion. Dans les deux cas, nous ne sommes pas en présence du langage de l’éducation, mais de celui du militantisme.

Source: Solidarité obligatoire

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Hashmi, Delic and Sherazi: Muslim families concerned about Pride activities in Ottawa schools deserve a voice

2023/06/28 Leave a comment

Bit of a stretch to make a parallel to colonial mindsets with respect to Indigenous peoples but a policy and practical challenge as most multiculturalism issues are in fact religious diversity issues, and involve assessing what is reasonable accommodation:

A few days before the start of June, our inboxes started filling up with messages from parents in our communities who were concerned about what their children would be taught during Pride month. They had contacted their children’s schools but were told there was a no opt-out policy in effect because participating in Pride month activities was a human rights issue.

The federal government describes human rights as “how we instinctively expect to be treated as persons. They define what we are all entitled to — a life of equality, dignity and respect, to live free from discrimination and harassment.”

When some Muslims felt their parental rights taken from them and their dignity dwindling, many decided to keep their children home on the first day of June.

When the influx of messages became so great, we created an online form to allow parents to share their concerns.

The results were disheartening. Of just under 500 responses, almost 30 per cent reported that their child had either been targeted for being a Muslim, had been taught age-inappropriate material or had their religious rights infringed upon. Another 22 per cent said they weren’t sure.

Parents shared stories about children being berated for being absent, being told they were ungrateful for having Ramadan recognized in school and being forced to attend Pride month activities. From a child being penalized with no recess for not wanting to colour in a rainbow in grade 3, to another child in junior kindergarten being asked whether she would like to be male or female, the anecdotal evidence piled up. Others reported that teachers debated religious beliefs with students to the point where the students felt targeted.

Multiple parents reported that a teacher at a Kanata school distributed a booklet to students in her Grade 5/6 class that specifically targeted Muslim students in her class, promoting the very practices and beliefs that most Muslim families find objectionable.

In one alarming incident, staff stood at the doors during an assembly to ensure no one left and even searched the parking lot for students. The irony that this took place during National Indigenous History Month should not be lost on us.

While the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board has committed to — and indeed has made great strides in — fostering a safe and inclusive environment for all students, these experiences suggest there is much more to be done.

Concerns raised by parents about Pride don’t have to do with LGBTQ+ individuals. Not one parent suggested that Pride should not be celebrated. They simply had reservations about their own children’s participation in the celebrations.

Cross-dressing and changing one’s birth gender are forbidden under mainstream Islamic teachings, as they are in some other religions, except in rare cases where there is physiological evidence to justify such a change. Active participation in activities and celebrations, whether it be a celebration of same-sex relationships, pre-marital relationships, or those involving alcohol, are largely understood to be prohibited by many Muslims.

For many parents, having their children stay home was a civil way of registering their helplessness in the face of a system that did not want to listen.

Stomping on Pride flags and other such actions are explicitly prohibited in Islamic teachings and we were quick to denounce such hurtful acts in protests. However, we are deeply concerned that our youth and some parents are being contacted by extreme right-wing groups interested in having our community be the so-called champions of this cause. People who are unheard and who feel frustrated are vulnerable to the whisperings of extremists.

We sincerely hope lessons can be learned from what has occurred to prevent it from happening again. For our part, we are committed to continuing our denunciations of hate and bullying against LGBTQ+ people, speaking out against dehumanization, and condemning disrespectful acts. Principled disagreements must not lead to hate, bigotry or disrespect.

The school board will need to calm fears, through the development of clear procedures for staff on how to navigate cases of gender dysphoria and nonconformity with age-appropriate care and professionalism. Parents need to be a part of those discussions, not an afterthought.

Recognizing that gender identity and sexual orientation are deeply personal matters, and that people choose to approach them in different ways, can help all students feel included without any judgments on personal choices or beliefs as well as help rebuild lost trust.

Raising awareness about the struggles people face, and sharing their lived experiences and histories, is an important part of fighting hate and intolerance. Both LGBTQ+ communities and Muslim communities face discrimination and hatred. But history has shown that when ideas are forced upon people, the effort often backfires and causes more damage. If our government is serious about human rights meaning living a life free of discrimination, Muslim parents and students need to stop being treated as haters.

As National Indigenous History Month comes to a closing, we would do well to remember the tremendous harm caused by teachers with colonial mindsets, demeaning the traditional and ancestral beliefs of children while isolating them from their parents. It would be wise for our public school system to not repeat similar mistakes.

Sikander Hashmi serves as imam in Kanata. Zijad Delic serves as imam in Barrhaven. Aisha Sherazi is a local writer and educator. The authors are part of the Muslim Leaders Working Group liaising with the OCDSB on this issue.

Source: Hashmi, Delic and Sherazi: Muslim families concerned about Pride activities in Ottawa schools deserve a voice

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We Muslims Used to Be the Culture War Scapegoats. Why Are Some of Us Joining the L.G.B.T.Q. Pile-On?

2023/06/24 Leave a comment

Good question:

The political right’s exhausting and cruel war on “wokeness” is now aligning with the efforts of some Muslim Americans to attack the L.G.B.T.Q. community under the guise of protecting religious freedoms and parental rights.

After enduring a gantlet of scapegoating after 9/11, you’d think we Muslims would have learned.

As a practicing Muslim American raising three children, I don’t find it in conflict with my faith to recognize that in a pluralistic, democratic society, all our communities must be able to live with security, dignity and freedom, even when there are profound differences on certain issues.

Last month a group of Muslim scholars and preachers published a joint statement titled “Navigating Differences: Clarifying Sexual and Gender Ethics in Islam.” In the name of helping families, the statement reiterates what is considered by many scholars to be traditional Islamic views on homosexuality but trades compassion, political foresight and pastoral care in favor of fear, panic and legalistic double talk.

It says that “there is an increasing push to promote L.G.B.T.Q.-centric values among children through legislation and regulations, disregarding parental consent and denying both parents and children the opportunity to express conscientious objection.” It appears to uncritically accept the zero-sum notion, pushed by right-wing politicians, that acceptance of the L.G.B.T.Q. community comes at the expense of giving up religious freedoms. It seems oblivious to the reality that if you replaced “L.G.B.T.Q.-centric” with “Shariah,” it would mimic the sentiments that have often been directed at devout Muslims in our country.

It’s also remarkable that so many religious leaders came together to speak with one voice on this particular issue, which one could falsely assume from the current political hysteria is the leading threat facing children. But as anyone who’s been part of recent debates within broader Muslim American communities knows, you’d probably never get this kind of concerted public statement from Muslim leaders on the issue of gun violence — the leading cause of death for American children — or climate change, which ultimately threatens all life. Somehow, though, this issue has managed to rally an array of Muslim scholars.

In Montgomery County, Md., outside Washington, D.C., the group Moms for Liberty, which has been designated an extremist organization by the Southern Poverty Law Center, has united with some Muslim parents who are protesting that the public school system no longer allows their children to opt out of reading books with L.G.B.T.Q. stories. “It’s not bigoted to want a safe space for all children, nor is it bigoted to provide reasonable accommodations to those with sincerely held religious beliefs,” says Raef Haggag, a Montgomery County public school parent and former high school teacher. When we exchanged emails, he told me that Muslim parents in Montgomery County had never called for a book ban, but that he believed an opt-out option would reflect parental rights and also be a reflection of “genuine tolerance, inclusivity and religious freedom.”

But is it truly inclusive and tolerant to signal to L.G.B.T.Q. kids or L.G.B.T.Q. parents that simply reading a book or learning about their existence might be so threatening and offensive that it requires an opt-out option in schools? How would Muslim parents feel if this was applied to children’s books about Ramadan or hajj?

Kareem Monib, a Muslim parent and a founder of the opt-out group Coalition of Virtue, recently appeared on Fox News and bonded with the host Laura Ingraham over what they saw as their fight for religious freedoms, apparently forgiving Ingraham for her past anti-Muslim bigotry: “Five years ago, Laura was saying we shouldn’t have Muslims in this country,” Mr. Monib told Semafor, “Now she’s saying: Thank God, the Muslims are here!” He seems to be referring to comments Ms. Ingraham made eight years ago, but either way, the irony is lost on him.

Muslims have also joined this campaign in Hamtramck, Mich., which has an all-Muslim City Council. Last week the council voted unanimously to bar Pride flags from being displayed on city properties — apparently forgetting that their Muslim immigrant forebears faced discrimination when they arrived in the city.

The increasing political demonization of L.G.B.T.Q. Americans is following the same script that has been used to marginalize Muslims and drum up fears about the supposed dangers of Shariah finding its way into the American legal system, all to pander to a constituency that is terrified of pluralism.

Let’s take a DeLorean back to the post-9/11 years, during which Islam, especially the specter of Shariah, was frequently made the villain.

Much like the recent deliberate efforts to mischaracterize critical race theory, Shariah was deliberately misdefined as a legal-political-military doctrine and the pre-eminent totalitarian threat of our time. Thanks to a well-funded right-wing machine, Shariah became a litmus test for Muslim American citizens to prove their moderation and loyalty.

In 2011 the presidential aspirant Herman Cain said he wouldn’t appoint a Muslim to his potential administration or the federal courts because he feared they would “force their Shariah law onto the rest of us.” In 2015, Ben Carson echoed those talking points, saying he wouldn’t support a Muslim American for president unless he or she renounced Shariah. Ultimately, Donald Trump ran on a Muslim ban and put in place a modified travel ban with the help of the Supreme Court. By 2017, according to one report, over 200 anti-Shariah bills had popped up in 43 states over nearly a decade, based on trumped-up claims that Islamic law was infiltrating the U.S. judicial system.

Compare all that with now: Before the 2024 elections, the L.G.B.T.Q. community has emerged as the boogeyman du jour. Right-wing media and G.O.P. elected officials are routinely accusing liberals of being groomers. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene recently said that transgender people are “sexual predators,” and the Texas G.O.P.’s new platform explicitly rejects trans identity and refers to homosexuality as an “abnormal lifestyle choice.” In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis defended his “Don’t Say Gay” law by saying his critics support “sexualizing kids in kindergarten.”

Meanwhile, Mr. Trump, who remains the Republican front-runner for 2024, said that providing gender-affirming care to minors was equal to “child abuse.” As a result of this ginned-up hate, there are over 520 anti-L.G.B.T.Q. bills that have been introduced in state legislatures, according to the Human Rights Campaign.

Now that queer Americans are being singled out, why are some Muslims so willing to go along?

We often forget that there are people whose lives are directly affected by these hateful words, statements and policies. I reached out to several L.G.B.T.Q. Muslims to ask them if they had any words for fellow Muslims who are supporting the right wing’s political attacks on L.G.B.T.Q. literature, rights and identities. “Don’t let Islamophobes and evangelical Christians vying for political power dictate the contours of your Islam,” Ramish Nadeem and Hanan Jabril, young Muslim activists, wrote in an emailed statement. “Is learning about L.G.B.T.Q.+ people, who do exist in the world we live in and even in our Muslim traditions, really gonna harm your kids’ faith? Is your Islam really that fragile that it must lead with exclusion, isolation and hate instead of mercy, openness and community?”

As Muslims in America, we have the capacity to be true to our faith and to embrace our neighbors — including members of the L.G.B.T.Q. community who may not share all our beliefs. And as citizens aware of how we’ve been treated, we should have better recognition of how the scapegoating of people for their sexual orientation or gender identity is a play from an old divide-and-conquer playbook. As the Times columnist Michelle Goldberg recently wrote, “Nothing drives conservatives to reach out to groups they once feared as much as another group that they fear even more.”

As a Muslim parent, I understand how difficult it is to raise our children in a political environment that still views them as perpetual suspects because of their religion and, in many cases, their skin color. However, we still have religious freedoms in this country that allow us to live our lives according to our values, even if they aren’t shared by the majority.

Ultimately, living in a pluralistic society requires reciprocity and respect, even if we occasionally make one another uncomfortable. It’s hypocritical, shortsighted and cruel for Muslims to align with hateful forces targeting vulnerable communities that, like us, are still fighting against bigotry and for acceptance. The way forward is to opt into a country where all our kids have a chance to be the heroes of their own stories.

Source: We Muslims Used to Be the Culture War Scapegoats. Why Are Some of Us Joining the L.G.B.T.Q. Pile-On?

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Muslims opposed to LGBTQ curricula for their kids aren’t bigots

2023/06/20 Leave a comment

A justification from the Dean of an Islamic Centre to provide some context to Canadian and American protests and highlighting an alignment among the religious right across religions. Ingenuous to argue that it is not political given today’s environment:

We are witnessing a unique and welcome phenomenon: Muslims in the West are at the forefront of a social movement that transcends any one faith or ethnicity. For those following the news, protests led by parents have erupted across the United States and Canada against school boards that wish to teach schoolchildren content about the acceptability of LGBTQ lifestyles.

While parents of all ethnicities and religions are involved, Muslim parents have been playing a central role in all of these cases, both as organisers and protesters, and their highly visible presence is creating waves on social media.

It is understandable for parents to be concerned. In Maryland, for example, a school district has approved books that discuss homosexuality and transgenderism as normal realities for children as young as three years old. This is state-sponsored ideological indoctrination of toddlers who can barely form complete sentences, much less think critically.

Parents have a God-given duty and legal right to provide moral instruction and guidance to their children. This includes the right of parents and their children to reject ideologies that contravene their beliefs.

Yet, supposedly secular institutions like public schools are now dictating that students must accept and affirm LGBTQ ideology, at times with the threat that if they refuse to do so, they “do not belong” in their country, as one teacher in Edmonton, Canada, recently said to a Muslim student.

As Muslims, we refuse to be coerced into believing something our faith categorically condemns. This is not a political stance. It is a moral principle.

A recent statement I helped draft, titled “Navigating Differences: Clarifying Sexual and Gender Ethics in Islam”, has been signed and endorsed by more than 300 Islamic scholars and preachers across North America. In this document, we explicitly and clearly lay out the non-negotiable, normative Islamic position on sexuality and gender ethics.

We believe this statement will allow Muslim parents, educators, students and professionals to establish their right to hold their religious views without fear of legal reprisal. All too often, those who wish to live in accordance with mainstream, family-based morality are accused of being bigoted and “homophobic” if they refuse to endorse LGBTQ events. Many suffer social repercussions for holding such beliefs.

Worse still, children are expected to attend events in which drag shows and other actions deemed immoral by many people of faith are showcased.

This statement seeks to be a reference point to demonstrate to school boards and employers why Muslims must preferably be excused from activities that contradict our religious ideals.

The statement is explicitly non-partisan and states that the signatories are “committed to working with individuals of all religious and political affiliations to protect the constitutional right of faith communities to live according to their religious convictions and to uphold justice for all”.

Despite such clear declarations of non-partisanship and though the protesters, from Maryland to Ottawa, have insisted they are asserting moral agency rather than political allegiance, certain groups insist on turning this into a partisan issue.

Those who have committed themselves to a left-wing liberal ideology (including some progressive Muslims) are outraged and ashamed of anything short of the full affirmation and acceptance of all LGBTQ demands. They point to our own experience of oppression as a Muslim minority and say we should thus show reciprocity to other marginalised groups, even as LGBTQ advocates often refuse to show the same sensitivity on issues we hold sacred.

The fact that conservative media outlets have provided a platform for Muslim parents to share their grievances is supposedly conclusive proof that these protesters, and all of us who oppose the teaching of the LGBTQ agenda in schools, are aligning themselves with the far-right, including white supremacists. That is simply not the case.

To be sure, the sudden friendliness of politically-conservative groups and media outlets towards Muslims is indeed tempting some in the community to rush to forge new alliances with the political right after previously flirting with the left. They are making a mistake. Again.

Muslims across North America should firmly root their moral values in their faith, not in a specific political ideology. To understand why this distinction is so critical, we ought to heed a lesson from our recent past.

In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, Islam in North America faced an existential crisis. Muslims were widely portrayed as the enemy. Scholars were deported. Bearded Muslim men and hijabi women were harassed, randomly questioned and detained at airports. Many worshippers avoided praying in masjids and some Muslims even changed their first names. The reality of Muslims in North America in the first decade of this century was one of fear, anxiety and extreme alienation.

The open hostility of the North American political right towards Islam and Muslims sharply contrasted with the comparatively sympathetic left. As a matter of pragmatic political (and in some cases, literal) survival, Muslims flocked to the liberal political parties of Canada and the United States. These left-wing institutions gave Muslims the best chance to survive against anti-Muslim forces largely represented by the conservative right. But embracing the left meant accepting an entire package of causes, some of which aligned ideologically with Islamic ethics (such as combatting racism), while others did not (such as the legalisation of certain drugs).

Many Muslims began approaching politics not as a tool but as an ideology. They felt motivated to resolve the cognitive dissonance between their political commitments and their religious beliefs, even if it meant radically reinterpreting the faith to allow for such accommodation.

Some progressives who identified with Islam began claiming, for the first time in our 14 centuries of scholarship, that the Quran has been misunderstood and that in its correct interpretation, it endorses alternative sexual lifestyles and sanctions same-sex marriages.

To be clear, Islamic law differentiates between a desire, which is in itself not sinful, and the deed, which could be a sin. Those struggling with same-sex desires but wishing to abide by Islamic law are our full brethren in faith and deserve all the love and rights of believers. They stand in contrast to those who flout Islamic law and take pride in disobedience. Muslim politicians and influencers, in particular, should be careful not to make religious claims on behalf of our faith.

In an authentic narration, Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) says: “believer is not bitten from the same hole twice”. Muslims who are rightly indignant about the moral decay sweeping our society in the name of inclusivity ought to be cautious not to be a pendulum that swings from one extreme to another.

Our politics is not our ideology and our ideology is neither left nor right. Our ideology is centred in our unshakeable faith, grounded in our immutable creed, and firmly rooted in the timeless words of God and the teachings of His final Messenger. We are a “Middle Nation” and, as the Quran says (2:143), our role is to be moral exemplars for mankind.

Yasir Qadhi Dean of The Islamic Seminary of America and Resident Scholar of East Plano Islamic Center

Source: Muslims opposed to LGBTQ curricula for their kids aren’t bigots

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‘A sense of betrayal’: liberal dismay as Muslim-led US city bans Pride flags

2023/06/19 Leave a comment

Of note:

In 2015, many liberal residents in Hamtramck, Michigan, celebrated as their city attracted international attention for becoming the first in the United States to elect a Muslim-majority city council.

They viewed the power shift and diversity as a symbolic but meaningful rebuke of the Islamophobic rhetoric that was a central theme of then Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s campaign.

‘It’s brought us together’: at Ramadan, American Muslims on life in the age of Trump

This week many of those same residents watched in dismay as a now fully Muslim and socially conservative city council passed legislation banning Pride flags from being flown on city property that had – like many others being flown around the country – been intended to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community.

Muslim residents packing city hall erupted in cheers after the council’s unanimous vote, and on Hamtramck’s social media pages, the taunting has been relentless: “Fagless City”, read one post, emphasized with emojis of a bicep flexing.

In a tense monologue before the vote, Councilmember Mohammed Hassan shouted his justification at LGBTQ+ supporters: “I’m working for the people, what the majority of the people like.”

While Hamtramck is still viewed as a bastion of multiculturalism, the difficulties of local governance and living among neighbors with different cultural values quickly set in following the 2015 election. Some leaders and residents are now bitter political enemies engaged in a series of often vicious battles over the city’s direction, and the Pride flag controversy represents a crescendo in tension.

“There’s a sense of betrayal,” said the former Hamtramck mayor Karen Majewski, who is Polish American. “We supported you when you were threatened, and now our rights are threatened, and you’re the one doing the threatening.”

For about a century, Polish and Ukrainian Catholics dominated politics in Hamtramck, a city of 28,000 surrounded by Detroit. By 2013, largely Muslim Bangladeshi and Yemeni immigrants supplanted the white eastern Europeans, though the city remains home to significant populations of those groups, as well as African Americans, whites and Bosnian and Albanian Americans. According to the 2020 census some 30% to 38% of Hamtramck’s residents are of Yemeni descent, and 24% are of Asian descent, largely Bangladeshi.

After several years of diversity on the council, some see irony in an all-male, Muslim elected government that does not reflect the city’s makeup.

The resolution, which also prohibits the display of flags with ethnic, racist and political views, comes at a time when LGBTQ+ rights are under assault worldwide, and other US cities have passed similar bans, with the vast majority driven by often white politically conservative Americans.

While the situation in Hamtramck largely evolved on its own local dynamics, some outside rightwing agitators connected to national Republican groups have been pushing for the ban on Hamtramck’s social media pages and voiced support for it at Tuesday’s meeting. They are from nearby Dearborn where they were part of an effort last year to ban books with LGBTQ+ themes.

Their talking points mirror those made elsewhere: some Hamtramck Muslims say they simply want to protect children, and gay people should “keep it in their home”.

But that sentiment is “an erasure of the queer community and an attempt to shove queer people back in the closet”, said Gracie Cadieux, a queer Hamtramck resident who is part of the Anti-Transphobic Action group.

Mayor Amer Ghalib, 43, who was elected in 2021 with 67% of the vote to become the nation’s first Yemeni American mayor, told the Guardian on Thursday he tries to govern fairly for everyone, but said LGBTQ+ supporters had stoked tension by “forcing their agendas on others”.

“There is an overreaction to the situation, and some people are not willing to accept the fact that they lost,” he said, referring to Majewski and recent elections that resulted in full control of the council by Muslim politicians.

Though the city’s Muslims are not a monolith and some privately told the Guardian they were “frustrated” with council, the only leader to publicly question it was the former city council member Amanda Jaczkowski, a Polish American who converted to Islam.

In a statement, she raised concerns about the move’s legality: “There are far too many questions to pass this today with any semblance of responsibility.”

On one level, the discord that has flared between Muslim and non-Muslim populations in recent years has its root in a culture clash that is unique to a partly liberal small US city now under conservative Muslim leadership, residents say. Last year, the council approved an ordinance allowing backyard animal sacrifices, shocking some non-Muslim residents even though animal sacrifice is protected under the first amendment in the US as a form of religious expression.

When Michigan legalized marijuana, it gave municipalities a late 2020 deadline to enact a prohibition of dispensaries. Hamtramck council missed the deadline and a dispensary opened, drawing outrage from conservative Muslims who demanded city leadership shut it down. That ignited counterprotests from many liberal residents, and the council only relented when it became clear it had no legal recourse.

At other times, the issues are not unique to Hamtramck. In the realm of local politics, personal fights among neighbors, warring factions and dirty politics are a common part of the democratic process across the US.

“I don’t know that we’re really all that different from other cities in most ways,” Majewski said.

However, race and religion add more fraught layers to Hamtramck’s issues. Islamophobia exists here, and some Muslims say they saw bigotry in local voter fraud investigations, and in LGBTQ+ supporters not respecting their religion.

But Majewski said the majority is now disrespecting the minority. She noted that a white, Christian-majority city council in 2005 created an ordinance to allow the Muslim call to prayer to be broadcast from the city’s mosques five times daily. It did so over objections of white city residents, and Majewski said she didn’t see the same reciprocity with roles reversed.

Ghalib disagreed, and labeled the prayer broadcast a “first amendment issue” while noting no one was asking for city hall to broadcast the calls.

Moreover, the white majority council was not always hospitable to Muslim residents who have previously faced overt racism. And with a majority-Muslim council in place, more Muslims had been appointed to boards and commissions, and hired in city hall. So had some LGBTQ+ residents, Ghalib added.

Despite the political clashes, he thinks there is hope for Hamtramck to live up to its multicultural ideals.

“We can get along and people are not violent here,” he said.

Cadieux agreed peaceful coexistence was possible.

“We aren’t in the business of excluding people from our society and I’m not going to exclude socially conservative Muslims – they have a place at the table just like everyone else,” she said. “However, they cannot, and will not, shove another community out of the way.”

Source: ‘A sense of betrayal’: liberal dismay as Muslim-led US city bans Pride flags

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