By Ishola Balogun

Those people who engage in it constitute a very active and powerful group. They have strong political and social ties and access to the elites of the society, especially in the US, Britain and Netherland where it started. They have a sophisticated and multifaceted campaign to achieve their goals. These include active participation in social and political issues other than their immediate ones.

The homosexual movement has a strong network of support groups, encouraging each other to “come out of the closet”, thus advancing and actively promoting this behavior.

They thrive on conflict amongst families and/or community members. They provide moral, psychological, social, and financial support to any one of their own who is making the transition into their lifestyles or who is “coming out of the closet”, so to speak.

They use different methodologies in changing social acceptability and behavior towards themselves. They study you and your family, most times take advantage of crisis in the family to launch themselves. They send morbid text messages, nauseating mails and woo you to join. They will then frame the issue as it is known, to convince you.

The reason for providing the background information here is first, to come to grip with the sophisticated nature of the problem; know who we and our youths are dealing with.

It is also to enable us formulate an effective response to deal with the issue and of course inoculate ourselves against this harmful and unnatural behaviour. I also believe that it could help whoever has these tendencies, or practices such behavior to desist from it and reform himself.

I agree most of the perpetrators are non-Muslims because Islam is not about groups, it is a religion which regulates lives and from which values can be derived. Suffice to say at this junction that God does not take delight in punishing HIS creature but interested in their repentance. That was why all the stories of the past are available for us to peruse and draw wisdom from it.

Nowadays, we do not take history as important. Our attitude is purely a product of the time in which we live – where morals have been completely liquefied to the extent that we no longer know the difference between black and white so to speak.

God has created everything in pairs each endowed with physical and psychological characteristics to complement and complete one another. The Quran (4:1) indicates that human beings have been created from one living entity (nafs), which represents the origin of both the male and the female.

The human species inclusive since its existence. The “mating” or “spousing” of male and female sexes is original in human nature and out of this instinctive relationship, the human race develops, continues and spreads.

Between the two sexes a gravitating combination of love, tenderness, and care is engendered, so that each finds in the other completeness, tranquility, and support (Quran 30:21). Having children and loving them represent another fulfillment of the human nature. (Quran 42:49-50).

It is through this spousal complementation and completion, according to the Quran (7:189) that each spouse achieves comfort, and enjoys peace of mind, satisfaction, and fulfillment. These relationships extend beyond the physical sexual contact and to psychological, spiritual relations.

The blessings of this completeness are not only the accomplishment of interelationship between both sexes, but they continue and develop through by bringing forth children, raising them, and providing the whole family with material, emotional, and moral needs.

The pleasures of completion and procreation may well be extended and multiplied, when one is granted grand children, who not only represent genealogical continuation, but are also a dynamic revitalization of the human race.

Such physical-psychological-spiritual development through spousing and mating, followed by procreation, that may continue for more than one generation, ought to lead every sensible human being to be grateful to God for His successive and multiplying favors with his own family throughout his lifetime. Such persons and their happy veritable families would be models for the whole society (Quran 25:72)

The nobility of the human spirit has the tendency to overcome the genetic propensity towards the act of gay if applied. Just like in other vices such as lies, alcoholism, adultery; the pre-disposition towards these acts can be resisted if the person brings himself to bear inorder to overcome it and this is what elevates the human being to the status above that of the angels.

As a Muslim, I believe that these people can be reformed. Allah does not take delight in the punishment of human beings or a race but in their repentance, seeking forgiveness and turning to Allah for salvation. The Quran reminds us that Allah (SWT) will change the condition of the people only if they on their own put forth the effort (13:11).

Our challenge even as Muslims is to explore and find ways to resist and counter this movement in our immediate community, and in our country irrespective of tribe. Action more than rhetorics will make us worthy of Allah’s (the most Exhalted) mercy and will endear us to Him.