Homosexuality

Dear Farzana...I am so impressed by your philosophy and honest dialogue. It is very rare these days and I appreciate an opportunity to exchange ideas about such sensitive and taboo subjects.
    I fully agree with you we as human beings need certain guidelines to run
the society. The question is:
who makes the rules?
who police forces them?
and
who is allowed to judge and punish?

I believe that human beings in twenty first century have become mature and adult that they can decide what rules to follow in their personal and social lives. In their loving relationships they can decide how they want to express their love, romance and sexuality. They do not need to ask the judge or the maulana whether they are allowed to indulge in certain sexual practices with their lovers.

    At a social level each community can decide what kind of rules, laws and traditions they want to follow provided it is respectful of men and women and all minorities equally.

    The difference is that those people who believe in God and Prophets and scriptures and WORD OF GOD believe that we need to follow rules and laws presented in the scriptures. I have an objection to that. To me that means that we as human beings cannot sort out our own problems. We need DIVINE GUIDANCE.
   

To me if anyone wants to follow divine guidance in his or her personal life I have no objection and I would respect that as a secular person but when we are making rules and laws for the community then the members of the community have to decide the rules and we need to respect that.
The final question is
what happens when
...the choice of two human beings, two men, two women or a man and woman is
in conflict with scriptures (does not matter Quran, Bible or Gita)
...the choice of the parliment or assemble of a community or a nation is in
conflict with the WORD OF GOD In Pakistan when there is Shariah law it means WORD OF GOD IS MORE IMPORTANT THAT WORD OF HUMAN BEINGS
that is where all the clerics and maulanas and fundamentalists get political power and punish and persecute people for sexual activites that for people are loving but for them are ZANA. Any loving relationship between a man and a woman is innocent but for maulana is sin because it is outside the marriage without nikah. Maulana gets the authority from his interpretation of Quran...word of God Similarly communities cannot be considered immoral, unethical and sinful because they are not following the WORDS OF GOD.
The question is who and how are we going to interpret scriptures and WORDS OF GOD. There are as many interpretations as scholars and followers. Each claiming to know THE REAL TRUTH...THE TRUE ISLAM...THE TRUE
CHRISTIANITY...THE TRUE JUDAISM...THE TRUE HINDUISM.
In Pakistan and India Quran's religious interpretations of

ABUL ALA MAUDUDI
GHULAM AHMED PERVAIZ
ABUL KALMA AZAD
AND
MIRZA GHULAM AHMED
 

and many others were not only different but contradictory. I do not ever see scholars of
a faith agreeing on any interpretations.
    When a religious group gets political power it can impose its judgments on others and that is where POLITICAL ISLAM>>>JUDAISM...CHRISTIANITY takes over. We saw one example in the era of Zia ul haq in Pakistan where people were lashed...(as you suggested in your previous letter 100 lashes for adultery according to Quran)

My view is that scriptures are for private meditation and introspection to learn wisdom and develop spiritually...they are not to make laws for the state. Laws for the state including sexual laws for single and married people should be based on human knowledge, experience and wisdom based on secular and humanistic values and not on WORDS OF GOD. In my mind using scriptures to make laws of the state in 21st century is unfortunate.
I am enjoying this intellectually stimulating dialogue. Are you joining us...Masud..Pervaiz...Steve...Irshad... and me... to see the movie KINSEY on
Thursday. sincerely sohail