Interreligious monologue

More doom and gloom on the gays and religion front: The head of the Muslim Council of Britain, Sir Iqbal Sacranie, has condemned homosexuality as unhealthy and a threat to society, according to the Times of London. His comments came in response the legalization of same-sex "civil partnerships," the first of which was celebrated last month.

According to Iqbal, "[Homosexuality] does not augur well in building the very foundations of society: stability, family relationships. And it is something we would certainly not in any form encourage the community to be involved in.”

Asked on the BBC Radio 4 PM programme if homosexuality was harmful to society, he replied: “Certainly it is a practice that in terms of health, in terms of the moral issues that comes along in a society, it is. It is not acceptable.

“Each of our faiths tells us that it is harmful and, I think, if you look into the scientific evidence that has been available in terms of the forms of various illnesses and diseases that are there, surely it points out that where homosexuality is practised there is a greater concern in that area.” Well, your faith may tell you that--or perhaps your personal interpretation of it.

Nice to see that the gays-spread-disease calumny is alive and well. Of course, we would all be rightly condemned if we said Islam was a threat to Western society because of its association with extremist politics and terrorism. Unfortunately, Iqbal evidently doesn't see the connection between his blanket condemnation of gays and lesbians and the illogical and prejudicial anti-Islamic rhetoric plaguing both European and American politics and media.

Not to be outdone, Cardinal Keith O’Brien, Roman Catholic archbishop of Saint Andrews and Edinburgh, used his New Year’s Day sermon to say that the introduction of civil partnerships was partly responsible for Britains living “at a time when the truth of marriage and family is obscured and distorted."

I still wonder what religious leaders across the spectrum are going to do when society doesn't collapse under the burden of legally-recognized same-sex relationships. Who will they blame then for sky-high divorce rates, unsupported and abused children, and the other problems that plague modern families? Will they finally acknowledge that the greatest threat to human families is an economy that values only the production of wealth at the cost of true human development and the destruction of the environment? Will they join their voices to oppose the resource-driven conflicts that turn children into soldiers, that separate families, and expose women and their children to exploitation?

I hate to be shrill, but I hardly think that the vast majority of the world's families give a damn about same-sex marriage. They're too busy trying not to freeze to death in earthquake shattered sections of Pakistan, trying to survive the aftermath of a tsunami in Southeast Asia, mourning children lost to AIDS and war in Africa, looking for medical care in the U.S., and trying to scrape by on a dollar a day in Central and South America.