Idrissa Gueye refuses to wear a rainbow shirt

[W11Nchenko]

The irony of his surname is not lost on me!

maybe gana is french for 'secretly'

 

[KS55]

I would compel Gueye to undergo a day of remedial education on the issue of homosexuality and Islam.

During that day, he would be assigned some specific reading.

Maybe it would be an idea to start with Ziauddin Sardar. After a discussion of the relevant textual passages (e.g. Surahs 4:16, 24:31, 24:60, 42: 49-50), Sardar (who is probably one of the UK's leading Muslim intellectuals) concludes his chapter on this topic in his book Reading the Qur'an with the following: 'It is quite clear to me that the widespread and rampant homophobia of Muslim societies cannot be justified on the basis of Qur'anic teachings or by the example of the Prophet Muhammad. On the contrary, the Qur'an portrays homosexuality as a natural disposition and the Sunna is exemplary in its toleration of sexual orientation.'

For example, Surah 4:16 states 'If two men condemn a lewd act, punish them both' would appear to condemn homosexuality. But Sardar thinks not. This is because 4:15 states 'If any of your women commit a lewd act, call four witnesses from among you...'

Sardar continues, 'What could this 'lewd' act be? It could be any kind of sexual indiscretion from adultery to fornication, prostitution to female or male homosexuality. The fact that four witnesses are required suggests that it is the act being performed in public...that really makes it indecent....What is condemned is lewd public behaviour - whatever the sexual orientation of the parties involved.'

Would follow that with this extract from John Boswell's Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality:

'Although the Qur'an and early religious writings of Islam display mildly negative attitudes towards homosexuality, Islamic society has generally ignored these deprecations, and most Muslim cultures have treated homosexuality with indifference, if not admiration. Almost without exception, the classic works of Arabic poetry and prose, from Abu Nuwas to the Thousand and One Nights, treat gay people and their sexuality with respect or casual acceptance...The Arabic language contains a huge vocabulary of gay erotic terminology...Erotic address by one male to another is the standard convention of Arabic love poetry; even poems really written to or for women use male pronouns and metaphors of male beauty: it is not uncommon to find poetry addressed to a female in which the object of the poet's affections is praised for 'a dark mustache over pearly white teeth', or the 'first downy beard over damask skin'. Poems about the physical allure of a young man's first beard constitute an entire genre of Arabic poetry...'

Then it would be time for 'poetry corner', which in this instance would consist of a look at one or two poems by the aforementioned hellraising, bisexual, wine-imbibing poet Abu Nuwas. Here's one of his best ones, taken from Vintage Humour: The Islamic Wine Poetry of Abu Nuwas (translated by Alex Rowell):

I Miss Al-Hira*

By God, I dearly miss
Al-Hira and its wine
And the ‘oud strings’ sound at dawn
As the church bells chime,
And I miss the taverns at
The sacrifice time**
And spending, on drink and
Beardless youths, my every dime
By God, were you to hear
The Poems I’ve devised
Their splendour would leave you in
Despair till your demise

*formerly a famous centre for Nestorian Christianity in Iraq
**Eid-ul-Adha

​

In the afternoon, maybe Gueye could be given some extracts from Pervez Sharma's excellent book, A Sinner in Mecca: A Gay Muslim's Hajj of Defiance to study, along with a similar selection from prominent lesbian Muslim Irshad Manji's The Trouble With Islam. Or alternatively, a screening of one of Sharma's documentaries could be arranged.

M. Steven Fish's book Are Muslims Distinctive: A Look at the Evidence (about as fair minded a publication as you will find when it comes to taking the temperature of Muslims on a variety of 'hot button' issues) confirms that most are, indeed, unusually averse to homosexuality. But as the above shows, this has not always been the case.

Apparently, Senegal's president Macky Sall wrote on Twitter that Gueye's Muslim beliefs must be respected.

Not when those beliefs are spectacularly uninformed, they shouldn't. And that goes for Sall as well.

Such erudition. Impressive.

 

[jimharri]

Entirely his choice, of course. Which he's free to do. Unlike the LGBT community in a lot of Muslim countries. As others have pointed out already, the contradiction between him not wearing a rainbow shirt while being happy to wear the logo of alcohol and gambling companies in the past is strange. It's apparently okay to drink, or gamble, both of which have destroyed innumerable families. But it's not okay to fall in love with someone of the same sex.

 

[kupest]

I am not sure where I stand on this. As mentioned here the things going through people is its gimmicky (which I agree with). UEFA havn't done shit about racism when its been in the stand, but have the No Racism logo plastered everywhere. The other issue is, its easier for people in free/open country to take stands, I can't imagine take a stand for certain things in countries where you would be subjected to harsher punishment. Maybe this needs to be voluntary for some of the above reasons. There is too much for some players from certain countries to lose for taking a world stand (most of their families are probably still in their home countries).

Ofcourse the other issue is its his freedom to choose what he supports/doesn't unless he does harm in anyway.

 

[The perfect fumble]

Entirely his choice, of course. Which he's free to do. Unlike the LGBT community in a lot of Muslim countries. As others have pointed out already, the contradiction between him not wearing a rainbow shirt while being happy to wear the logo of alcohol and gambling companies in the past is strange. It's apparently okay to drink, or gamble, both of which have destroyed innumerable families. But it's not okay to fall in love with someone of the same sex.

Homosexuality is illegal in Senegal, it's illegal in Qatar, it's illegal in the UAE too.

So who's the bigger hypocrite? Gueye, who won't wear the colours, or PSG and City who insist their players do.

Corporations should f**k off with their virtue signalling, their motives are dubious at best and the simple truth is they don't believe in any of it, or do so in such a superficial manner as to be utterly worthless.

 

[mexico1970]

Homosexuality is illegal in Senegal, it's illegal in Qatar, it's illegal in the UAE too.

So who's the bigger hypocrite? Gueye, who won't wear the colours, or PSG and City who insist their players do.

Corporations should f**k off with their virtue signalling, their motives are dubious at best and the simple truth is they don't believe in any of it, or do so in such a superficial manner as to be utterly worthless.

Players have a choice if they support a cause or not, obviously that depends on your understanding of the word choice.

 

[jimharri]

Homosexuality is illegal in Senegal, it's illegal in Qatar, it's illegal in the UAE too.

So who's the bigger hypocrite? Gueye, who won't wear the colours, or PSG and City who insist their players do.

Corporations should f**k off with their virtue signalling, their motives are dubious at best and the simple truth is they don't believe in any of it, or do so in such a superficial manner as to be utterly worthless.

Confused here. You lumped City in there, even though you didn't include Abu Dhabi in the list of countries.

 

[Dr Quincy]

All the snowflakes out in force wanting to cancel a man for not agreeing with their opinions.

Fair play to the lad.

 

[Gareth Barry Conlon]

Surely that goes against the core element of what these things are in being free to be yourself?

When you sign over your image rights as part of your massive contract that is exactly what you are doing - handing over that 'freedom' to the club in exchange for cash. Signing on to represent the club in all things it chooses to associate with. You cant even were your choice unddies in a game. You are of course 'free' to refuse but you are in violation of your contract. This will play out in the press / media or it could go to court who would be willing to look at your motivation if you think you have good grounds.

If he was going to refuse to wear a shirt with a badge on he should have had a clause in his contract. He wont have and he will have a shitty reason why he didn't. He deserves all the shit he will get in my view.

 

[The perfect fumble]

Confused here. You lumped City in there, even though you didn't include Abu Dhabi in the list of countries.

Abu Dhabi isn't a country.

There are only small differences between the Emirates in the criminalisation of homosexuality.