Gays in Turkey and Their Religion

As americans keep changing their minds of how they felt 10 years ago towards the gay community and how they feel today there is a great divide. They have gotten informed and they have gotten to know real gays. The gays that they have known as co workers and family members because they have come out now.

It’s very true than in the process of coming out there have been different kind of casualties but the most common is been the one of embarrassment and one of separating yourself from the crowd to say you are different. Those things are always difficult because even though we all like to keep our own individualities still we want to be part of the group. That’s why we follow fashion and see whats in and what’s out.

While Americans got to know gays as people just like them, they were able to separate religion to a class of people. Everyone likes to think that they follow the right religion, but religion is based on personal faith.  You have your job, home, friends, family and if you follow a religion then you have a church or temple. All of those are different and most be treated respectfully differently. When you are able to do that you respect people for what they are not for what ever someone else says that they are. You get to know people that seem different are really just like you as a person is concern.Americans have learn and are learning this. There is no other reason why the process have been going almost at the speed of light as far as the changing of minds in cultures are concerned.

For people in other countries, these countries that have remained lock to new ideas and ways to do things it is very hard to come out because you just not risking your job like that was not hard enough but you are risking your life. But like we see in Jamaica and we see in Russia people still fight to come out and be them selves. They don’t see as having a life in the closet like they wear a garment to wear in different occasions.

Today I would like to talk about Turkey which falls in the category of Religion controlling all your aspects of your life.

I will give you the story of Ambre Tosunoglu in ISTANBUL }} "When I was a child, I was told that homosexuals would burn in hell," said Ertugrul, a Muslim fighting for greater freedom for gays in a country where homosexuality remains taboo.

Ertugrul, who did not want to give his last name, is president of the group Muslims and Gays, which he says wants to "break taboos" in Muslim-majority Turkey, where gays are still subject to violence and abuse.
"There are still regions where people kill gays and lesbians to keep the honor of the family intact," he said.
"For religious clerics, homosexuality is a test. If you succumb to temptation, you will go to hell. If you resist, you will be pardoned and go to heaven," explained the 39-year-old, a practicing Muslim.
Homosexuality and transsexuality are not illegal in Turkey but police regularly swoop -- with or without authorization -- on parks, bars or hammams they believe gays frequent to check for prostitution.
People are then taken to police stations where officers check their identities and if they have a criminal record.

Critics say the checks are a way of putting pressure on the gay community.
In 2010, the Turkish minister for Women and the Family, Selma Aliye Kavaf, fell foul of gay rights groups when she classified homosexuality as "a biological disorder" and a "disease" which needed to be "cured".

When anti-government protests swept Turkey in June, members of the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) association used the demonstrations to try and highlight their cause, but in vain, as violent attacks and even murders continue.
Gulsen, a 24-year-old who is gay, told AFP that, just the previous day, a transsexual friend had been found dead.
"We have lost count of the number of attacks, there are so many of them," he said.

He was attacked in Istanbul's Gezi park, the site made famous after controversial plans for its redevelopment sparked the June protests.
"I was talking to a young guy the other evening in the park when I was attacked by two guys who stabbed me in the face with a knife," said Gulsen, who like Ertugrul, preferred that AFP did not use his last name.
But reporting the attack is out of the question.
"Why would I?" he said. "We know that there will be another version of events and that the attackers will never be punished."
As gay Muslims struggle to reconcile religious teaching and sexuality, some prefer to try and get rid of their feelings, eager to believe that being gay is merely a phase.

"I couldn't stay gay -- my family and friends could not accept it," said Mustafa, 26.
He underwent therapy to "better understand himself" and to "try to desire a woman's body". Convinced that he could change, Mustafa married a woman in June.

"She knows that I am not in the least attracted to women but that I'm working on it," he said. He wants "to be normal", he said, "like everyone else whose lives are simple". —

Adam Gonzalez
story By Ambre Tosunoglu