Growing Muslim activism in the U.S., Canada and other countries on such issues as sex education and gender is finding new support and cooperation from conservative Christians, reports Sarah Haider in her blog Hold That Thought (June 15). Recently, conservative Christians have expressed admiration for Muslim parents protesting progressive classroom curricula and teachings on gender and sex education in various countries, believing that they have been more effective and united than their own protests. In June, Muslim parents staged a large protest in Maryland when a school district decided to reclassify sex education and gender material so that parents would no longer be informed or have the option to take their children out of school. Conservatives also applauded an all Muslim city council in Hamtramck, Michigan, that refused to fly the pride flag in June. Before 9/11 there were numerous instances of alliances between Muslims and conservative Christians, and Haider suggests that the new Muslim activism may convince conservatives to “begin loosening up their xenophobia…[P]rovided terror attacks remain rare, they are unlikely to pick it up with the same intensity as before (against Muslims, at least).” Herself an ex-Muslim, atheist writer and activist, Haider goes on to further speculate that “the religious alliance taking charge of the conversation will discourage secular critics of woke extremism from speaking out—polarizing the debate further.”
Source: Religious Freedom Institute.
The move to greater conservative activism will “make it likely that Muslims will broadly re-join the conservative fold. The Left will abandon Muslims, who are no longer cooperating nor all that useful for signaling tolerance,” Haider writes. Aside from an emerging Christian-Muslim alliance, she notes the likelihood of a sharper rift between progressive and conservative Muslims, although she is skeptical that progressive Islam ever had many adherents, even calling such individuals “MINOs”—“Muslims in Name Only.” She adds, however, that the few MINOs that do exist are “larger than life, as they are the literal poster kids for what I like to call ‘Intersectional Islam.’ This Islam is a product of the West, more specifically, of the desires of elite white liberals…Intersectional Islam provides the kind of diversity that educated liberals are comfortable with—all the ‘enriching’ accouterments of cultural difference without any of the underlying ideas. MINOs don’t eat pork, but they do support #TransRights.” Haider cites a recently released public statement, “Navigating Differences,” with hundreds of signatories among Muslim leaders, asserting that attempts to reinterpret doctrine to be inclusive of LGBTQ affirmation are “theologically indefensible.”
(Hold That Thought, https://newsletter.sarahhaider.com/p/muslim-christian-alliance-against?; the “Navigating Differences” statement can be downloaded at: https://navigatingdifferences.com/clarifying-sexual-and-gender-ethics-in-islam)
