Former imam tells students homosexuality is like a disease
Xtra.ca
A publicly-funded Islamic school in Edmonton has come under fire after a video emerged of a Muslim leader comparing homosexuality to diabetes, cancer and AIDS in a lunch-hour talk to students.
Last fall Mustafa Khattab, the former imam at the Al Rashid Mosque in Edmonton, delivered a talk on the etiquette of interacting with people of the opposite sex to a group of students in the break room at the Edmonton Islamic Academy. Towards the end of his talk, someone asked Khattab about an Islamic perspective on homosexuality. Khattab, who was invited to give the talk, described homosexuality as “abnormal” and affirmed that it is not allowed by Islam.
“So for me somebody who is homosexual is like somebody who has diabetes, or cancer, or AIDS,” he said. “He has a special case and this person needs a special treatment. Can I talk to them? Why not? Just like I talk to everybody, okay. Personally I don’t like to be associated with them.”
He then shared a story about how he once moved his chair away from a gay man who was talking to him about discrimination and demonstrated his point by moving around a table. Khattab further claimed that homosexuality is “against everything” including nature and recounted that in his 20 to 25 years of farming he never came across gay ducks or goats.
“The best thing I like about the West is freedom and the worst thing about the West is too much freedom,” he said. “Sure, you’re allowed to do whatever you want but don’t go to the extreme. Don’t go overboard.”
In an email statement, Khattab, who has since left his position at the mosque and now works as an assistant lecturer in Islamic studies at Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt according to his website, says it would be “unfortunate” to characterize him or Edmonton’s Islamic Academy as homophobic.
“We have to agree that this is a very controversial topic in almost all faiths and it’s hard sometimes to express your views on issues like this in a diplomatic way,” he writes. “Since I was talking to a group of high school students about a sensitive issue like this, I tried to make a point in a funny way, rather than being blunt. I agree I might have been unlucky in my choice of words, but I believe the comment was taken out of context and misrepresented. Whoever reported the comment failed to mention what I said about gays and lesbians being our brothers and sisters in humanity and they shouldn’t be discriminated against — even if we might disagree with what they do.”
Kim Capstick, the spokesperson for Alberta Education Minister Jeff Johnson, feels that Khattab’s comments do not reflect the spirit of Alberta’s Human Rights Act or the Charter which prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
“It is very clear in our expectations at all schools — whether they are private, public, Catholic, francophone, or home education — must respect diversity within this province,” she says. “That’s one of the things that makes Alberta great. We have amazing diversity. We need to make sure all kids, regardless of background, race, sexuality, colour, that all kids feel safe at school.”
Capstick says the ministry became aware of the situation on April 12 when it read an editorial on the Sun News Network website. She notes that Johnson was “incredibly concerned” with the story after it came to his attention and asked ministry officials to visit the school to confirm that Khattab was not a teacher and that the school did not condone his comments.
The school’s principal, Jawdah Jorf, refused to answer Xtra’s questions about which policies the Edmonton Islamic Academy has in place to support queer students.
“We already gave our stand and views to the media,” Jorf told Xtra by email. “We are not accepting any media interviews anymore as our comments were clear through the Edmonton Journal and the CTV news.”
In her interview with the Journal she disavowed Khattab’s comments and affirmed that they are his personal opinions and do not reflect the school’s view.
“I don’t understand how homosexuality is related to cancer or diabetes,” Jorf told the Journal. “You can’t compare these things. I don’t see how anyone can agree with a statement of that kind.”
Capstick says that Alberta’s new Education Act, which was passed last year and will come into effect in 2015, strives to ensure that students feel safe at school.
“We simply won’t tolerate any acts of hatred like that which would make kids not feel safe at school,” she says. “We just passed a new Education Act late last year and a big part of that legislation was ensuring that kids feel safe at school and that school was safe for all kids, regardless of which school they attend.”
Though the new Act addresses bullying among staff and students, it does not specifically mention any one group, including queer students.
“[Bullying is] wrong in all forms for all people,” Capstick says. “We didn’t want to inadvertently leave a group out.”
Liberal MLA and education critic Kent Hehr says this story is a “textbook example” of why public funding of private schools should be questioned. He believes that it’s not the proper role of government to fund private schools.
“Alberta funds private schools at a higher rate than any province,” he tells Xtra. “Remember in the Constitution Act the government has to provide education to the public, separate, and francophone schools, and after that it’s a political choice. In my view it’s bad public policy it doesn’t lead to better outcomes for your society.”
Kris Wells, a researcher at the University of Alberta’s Institute for Sexual Minority Studies and Services, says there is no reason why sexual orientation and gender identity can’t be addressed in age-appropriate ways in any faith community.
“What the school needs to do, if they have those kind of invited lecturers, is to ensure that there is someone who could can talk openly about the reality of sexual and gender minorities in Canada to counterbalance those hateful comments that were shared,” he says. “This way we can use this horrible incident and frame it as an opportunity to openly and professionally talk about these issues within that particular school community.
“We need to be talking about all these issues in our faith communities somehow,” he continues. “The presumption that LGBT youth don’t exist within faith-based schools is ludicrous and laughable and we continue to ignore that reality at our own peril and it’s our youth who suffer. They suffer through enforced silence, through bullying, and in tragic cases they take their own life.”
