Good News from the Episcopal Church
1 hour ago
Friday, February 29, 2008
Gay Mohammad art censored
Gay Mohammad images on video and in photos were censored recently from a Dutch art exhibit. The artist was forced into hiding by death threats from Muslim extremists.
Iranian-born artist Sooreh Hera says that her images are an artistic expose of Islamic hypocrisy on homosexuality.
She photographed gay men in masks of Mohammad and his son-in-law Ali. Her video mixes photos of gay men and Muslim clerics, Islamic chants and the hard rock of “Gay Bar” by Electric Six.
The municipal museum in the Hague backed out of its plan to exhibit the photos from Hera’s “Adam and Ewald” series and a related video, according to recent news reports. Wim van Krimpen, director of the Gemeentemuseum, announced that the images were removed because “certain people in our society might perceive it as offensive.”
Hera, 34, accused the museum of caving in to pressure from Islamists, who also sent her death threats. Hera withdrew the rest of her photos from the show in protest, and another Dutch museum in Gouda has agreed to exhibit them in the future.
Her video “Allah ho Gaybar” was on YouTube for a few hours before it was removed for its provocative content. It is now available at www.dumpert.nl.
A gallery of gay Mohammad photos can be viewed on Hera’s website. “Religion always wants to control human sexuality, most prominently with a compelling taboo on homosexuality,” she says in a statement on her site. “I have tried to show a recognisable beauty of homosexuals, but also an alienating beauty that to many may be unimagined, or dishonorable.”
In media interviews, Hera repeatedly criticizes countries such as Iran for imposing the death penalty for homosexual conduct.
The gay Mohammad controversy is especially interesting to me as a lesbian Christian art historian. I get many negative comments from Christian conservatives who are offended by the gay Jesus images in my websites and book Art That Dares. They often say that nobody would dare make a picture of a gay Mohammad because Islamic fundamentalists fight blasphemy with violence. Sometimes the Christian right sounds almost envious, as if they wished they could use violence instead of Christ’s command to “love your enemy.”
Well, the Christian right was wrong. Artists ARE making gay Mohammad images. As long as there is religious hypocrisy over homosexuality, artists will be making queer religious images that expose the truth. Society is enriched by the brave, powerful artistry of truth tellers like Sooreh Hera.
News reports about Hera and other artists addressing religion and homosexuality are included in the monthly Jesus in Love Newsletter on queer spirituality and the arts. I edit the newsletter and blog here at the Jesus in Love Blog. Visit JesusInLove.org for more progressive spiritual resources.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
In the Qur'anic description of heaven, we read of 'boys beautiful as scattered pearls' being promised to those who are deemed worthy, in fact these beautiful boys are depicted as passing out cocktails! The Qur'anic paradise is a bisexual orgy, which I find quite liberating and life-affirming.
I personally don't believe that scriptures are God's word, but the descriptions of virgins and boys in heaven probably attest to the prophet's own sexual fantasies, which were perhaps sublimated in the form of sacred literature. Whether or not Muhammad acted on these fantasies, is another matter, but fantasize about boys he did.
I've often heard that female virgins are promised to Muslim martyrs, but the bisexual heaven that you quote from the Qur'an is much less well known.
A commenter at the Gay Spirituality blog also says the the Prophet Mohammad's uncle Hamza has homosexual adventures in a Persion literary work called "The Adventures of Amir Hamza."
surely there is no record of Muhammad and Ali having homosexual appetites. So shouting out a statement without evidence but with some self-made photos won't yield any truth. I have nothing against artists practising their freedom (I being one myself). Nor do I support the violent reaction of the Muslim world. The point is: Muslims must realize that if what they believe is true then it doesn't need to be fought for. Who has ever heard of a person fighting to prove that Sun rises in the East. And artists must realize that they will never succeed in creating a world they dream about and therefore should keep their dreams within people like themselves. Why bother bearded, illiterate men and veiled, uncivilzed women with a question like: was your prophet a homosexual?
Debate on this post is lasting longer than for anything I've ever written. Over at the Gay Spirituality Blog, people are still making passionate comments pro and con about this post, even 10 months after this was posted. There are 22 comments on it at the Gay Spirituality Blog, and the debate never ends.
See it at this link:
Gay Spirituality Blog
http://gayspirituality.typepad.com/blog/2008/02/gay-mohammad-ar.html#comment-105414992
hi
im reza
im muslim
i bilive masih and our messenger
our book forbid the man with man
and allah have a bad request
he has a great book from allah
he didnt here but if you was a muslim you know our book forbid talk about a person who does not here and
but when we have problam with any body(muslim) we need too talk about agrea man i pray allah show our good way
omid_r_saba@yahoo.com
Post a Comment