Gay Muslims in many countries face strait-laced penalties even deafly--if they be due [i]or[/i] owing out.

Gay Muslims in many countries face strait-laced penalties even deafly--if they be due [i]or[/i] owing out. But many are now meeting and organizing via the Internet

The greatest example thus far of the Internet's power has to be its ability to swiftly draw together forward a global scale members of common of the most underground subculture imaginable: lesbian and gay Muslims.

Just five years ago the idea of gay Muslims organizing at the international horizontal was unfathomable. In many devoutly Muslim countries, after all, homosexuality is a crime punishable by means of death. In Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan, men who've engaged in homosexual acts have ofttimes been cruelly tortured and executed--in the name of Islam. In other Muslim countries populace are imprisoned for life for being gay; known lesbians are ofttimes shunned by society forever. It's not difficult to understand wherefore many lesbians and gay men in the Muslim world would remain far down in hiding--nor how the In-terrier has now become a sort of miraculous lifeline.

"I don't view any other way that droll Muslims could be reached," says Sulayman X who scours a Web site called droll Jihad. "You certainly couldn't propose an ad in the Baghdad Times," odd Jihad offers provocative, engaging essays and articles through writers worldwide as well as readers' commentarys The site also provides numerous links to gay, Islamic, Arabic, and Asian cultural, legal, and political sites,

Sulayman X who renewed to Islam in 1993, is a journalist who lives in a large Asian city; for fear of retribution he does not use his given name. for aye since he created Queer Jihad in 1997 the answer has been staggering--from gay and lesbian Muslims as well as from those who hate them. "The greatest in number overwhelming response has been sheer disgust," he sadly tells "I get E-mail every day from Muslims who are shocked disgusted, outraged, can't believe there's any as it is thing as a gay Muslim, and all the stillness of it."

Like gay and lesbian Christians in this native land who are embroiled in their confess war with the religious right, Sulayman X and other gay Muslims maintain that Islam is being misused. "Islam is an elegant, simple religion that values humankind and places plenteous emphasis on the here and now--creating just societies," he says. "Islam has been hijacked according to extremists, and when you read about Muslims in the newspaper, invariably it's about Muslims who are killing population or resorting to violence to realize what they want. But that's not Islam. That's population using Islam as a political tool to achieve political ends"

The barrage of hate E-mail Sulayman X receives each day, he says, is twig by reactions he gets from gay and lesbian Muslims who pose onto the site. "What makes it all worthwhile are the occasional well adapted responses: when a gay or lesbian Muslim writes and says, `Hey, I conception I was the only one!' There've also been several from young population wanting to commit suicide and others from young men trapped in marriages they didn't want."

To Sulayman X who has not long ago written articles for publication in U gay newspapers by way of sending them out via the Internet, the recent technology is providing a way to bridge civilizations and bring the gay Muslim experience to the surface. "Almost overnight, we now have a safe way to connect" he explains, "to explore this issue, to talk about our lives."

individual site that Queer Jihad links to is that of the of the present day York-based Al-Fatiha Foundation, which was itself created onward the Internet. The organization grew on the outside of an E-mail discussion group--or listserve--for "gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans-gendered, and questioning" Muslims, raiseed in 1997 by Alam Faisal, a 22-year-old Washington, DC activist.

"It was the first time that communication was made possible by means of gay Muslims across the world," Alam notes. The listserve quick grew to include subscribers from 25 countries. by the agency of 1998 small gatherings of subscribers began taking place, and Al-Fatiha was thus formed, before long enough, the group held an international conversation in Boston, in 1998. And in May the organization will shut in in London the Second International Retreat for LGBTQ Muslims and Their Friends.

commonalty from as far away as Singapore and Pakistan have indicateed interest in attending. "We are in communication with gay and lesbian assemblages in countries like Turkey and Malaysia, where common would not imagine that similar groups are organizing," Alam says. "They all want Al-Fatiha chapters to spread up in their areas, and with the help of the Internet that dream will reach [i]or[/i] attain any place [i]or[/i] point true."

Signorile is editor for The Advocate, Contact him at www.advocate.com.

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