A British Muslim leader has told the BBC he believes homosexuality is “not acceptable” and denounced new same-sex civil partnerships as “harmful”.
Head of the Muslim Council of Britain Sir Iqbal Sacranie said introducing the partnerships did “not augur well” for building the foundations of society. Nevertheless, he told BBC Radio 4’s PM programme, everyone should be tolerant.
Peter Tatchell of gay rights group OutRage! said: “It is tragic for one minority to attack another minority.”
The BBC News report concludes with a further quotation from Tatchell that is even more jaw-droppingly hypocritical: “Both the Muslim and gay communities suffer prejudice and discrimination. We should stand together to fight Islamophobia and homophobia.”
In reality, Tatchell’s position is that, so long as mainstream Muslim organisations refuse to take a progressive stand on gay rights, he will refuse to co-operate with them in opposing anti-Muslim bigotry – indeed, he feels entitled to form a bloc with the Right in whipping up Islamophobia.
Needless to say, in the case of other religions he doesn’t apply the same stringent criteria in building alliances. He is quite happy to form a bloc against Robert Mugabe with Catholic Archbishop Pius Ncube, whose views on homosexuality, we strongly suspect, are hardly more progressive than Iqbal Sacranie’s.