MDI’s Abdullah al Andalusi and Ustadh Subhi (representative of Exeter Mosque) debates Chief Superintendent Paul Davies (Devon & Cornwall Police) and Sajjad Rizvi (Exeter University), on the issues of Fundamentalism, Human rights, and the treatment of the rights of Muslims in the UK and the West.
The Muslim Debate Initiative 
Br. Abdullah Al Andalusi. I have a problem with your take on the issue of homosexuality. The crux of your argument is this:
1. Discrimination happened when the label was invented i.e. in the Victorian era.
2. Sharee’ah prohibits all extra-marital and pre-marital sexual acts which would include same-gender intercourse
3. Sharee’ah prohibits all lewd behaviors in public and the Islamic State has no jurisdiction over what you do in the privacy of your own home
4. Sharee’ah applies only to Muslims, and non-Muslims are left to their own values, systems and devices (e.g. Imam Jawzi’s fatwa on incestuous marriages within Zoroastrians)
5. Those among Muslims on TV who are found inciting hatred against homosexuals are not presenting the true values of normative Islam
This portrays a picture of Islam in which a person is not discriminated against on the basis of his sexual preferences. This, however, appears to be untrue when the following points are considered:
1. The Quran mentions the deviation of the nation of Prophet Lut (as) several times and explicitly condemns the practice of same-gender intercourse
2. To lump together the prohibition of same-gender intercourse with the prohibitions of extra-marital and pre-marital intercourse betrays the fact that Islam does not recognize marriages of same gender among Muslims.
3. To say that the state has no jurisdiction within the privacy of your own home circumvents the fact that the behavior is deemed criminal within the privacy of one’s home, just like theft would be considered criminal but can’t be prosecuted if the thief is not caught in the act. So if you are saying, “you can have same-gender intercourse as long as nobody sees you”, is like saying “you can be a theif as long as nobody catches you”. It is a twisted presentation of the fact that the act would still be considered criminal. And therefore a person in a relationship with the same gender will not be allowed to openly admit it in public, unlike the hetro-marriages which are announced and public.
4. Sharee’ah applies to Muslims only but that says nothing about whether Muslims are supposed to like or dislike a person who openly claims to be gay. Muslims are supposed to not only avoid the acts prohibited by Islam, but are supposed to dislike those actions if they see them being performed. They are supposed to speak against such actions. Just like a Muslim is not supposed to share a table on which wine is being served, the same Muslim is not supposed to stay neutral in a situation where a person openly admits to homosexual activity. He can not allow such admissions to pass without condemnation, or at least feeling bad in his heart if he does not find the opportunity to openly condemn. In that vein, even if this act is done by non-Muslims, we are supposed to tell our children that this is depravity which Allah (swt) has saved us from by guiding us to His revelation.
5. As a result of the above discussion, if a Muslim is openly criticizing the normalization of homosexuality in the Western society, he is acting in accordance with the practice of Prophet Lut (as). If we stay quiet or be supportive, our actions will be closer to the wife of Prophet Lut (as) who, as we learn from the Quran, was punished due to her supportive stance towards this act.
Based on the above, a person openly claiming to be engaging in homosexual activity will be condemned by the Muslim, and rightly so. And this would not be against the fundamentals of Islam.