ARE HOMOSEXUALITY & INCEST THE SAME？ ｜｜ SPEAKERS CORNER
Episode Stats
Summary
In this episode, we discuss the controversial topic of homosexuality in Islam. According to the Quran, it is forbidden to have sexual relations with another human being. But what does that mean for us in the West? Is it morally wrong to be in a sexual relationship with another person? And should we wear protection?
Transcript
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I want to ask you for a straightforward question.
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So, first of all, let me tell you something before I ask you something.
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There's a maxim in the Quran, yeah, which says,
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So, a soul is not given more than what it can handle, yeah?
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So, if someone has a feeling of homosexuality, yeah, so I'm saying like if a Muslim, he feels
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like, oh, attracted or sexually attracted to the same gender, yeah, as Muslims, we say
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Because based on that maxim, do you see how that works?
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So, basically, if you're, look, if any human being like yourself or whatever, yeah, if
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you feel physically attracted, it's basically a soul is not, or a human being, a self is
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not given more than it can handle in terms of ability.
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So, if you can't control yourself and it's just something that's within you, yeah, and
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you're feeling like, oh, you know, I'm attracted to the same gender, yeah?
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Sometimes you can't necessarily like, you know, control that.
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So, if that's the case, you're not sinful for feeling like that.
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Because Islam doesn't hold you to account for how you feel.
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Because I don't want to sugarcoat everything and lie.
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Islam, when it comes to homosexuality, it forbids homosexuality in a sexual sense.
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So, what I mean to say, when I say that, is that, say for example, a man wants to say
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So, we would say that's morally not a right thing to do.
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Now, if he feels good when he sees a man, all right?
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So, morally, it's a wrong thing for a human being to do.
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Now, the reason why I would say, I think this is the argument now.
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Like, in the West, they say, look, man, that's okay.
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But, and you'll probably agree with this, yeah?
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You say, we believe, in the West here, that so long as you're not harming anyone else,
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As long as you're not harming anyone else, you can do whatever you want.
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Yeah, John Stuart Mill is an English philosopher, and he talks about the harm principle.
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That's why you guys know what I'm talking about.
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And he obviously furthered from what Bentham...
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If you remember, his father was close friends with whom?
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So he realised that utilitarianism had, like, the issue of the harm.
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So he put a cap on that, or he kind of refined the theory of utilitarianism with what he called
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If you remember, like, from your studies, yeah?
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Let me ask you a question straight forward, yeah?
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All things aside, a mother and a son, they can wear protection, all right?
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No, I wouldn't, because the mother is an older...
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I think that the mother is a guardian of the son and is responsible.
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I wouldn't think it's okay for a teacher to have...
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Even if they're both consensual, I wouldn't think it's okay for a teacher to have sex with a pupil,
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because of the power dynamic that exists between them.
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If the son had reached the age of 18, which in England, we agree, there is an age for sexual consent.
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If 18 is the age of sexual consent, you can make a decision as an independent adult...
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Therefore, if a mother and an 18-year-old decided to have sex, then I would consider it very strange.
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I'd say a granddad and his granddaughter, but the granddaughter is over the age.
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So, my issue isn't that they're related, it's the power dynamic that exists between...
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Because whatever age someone is, there's still going to be power relations between the two individuals.
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But what I'm saying is that if we're accepting that the maxim that we're being morally consistent with is the harm principle,
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the maxim, basically, that you can do whatever you want so long as you don't harm anyone else,
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then I feel it would be a contradiction of that harm principle if we said,
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okay, you have one rule for homosexuals and a different rule for those people who practice incest.
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But are you saying that incest is the same as homosexuality?
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What would be, in your minds, the difference between incest and homosexuality?
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Because incest exists in this power dynamic that I explained,
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that, like, mothers have power over their sons and, like...
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There's an inherent love and there's an inherent connection...
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Do you think there's a naturalistic element which makes it, like, naturalistically unacceptable?
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There's a bond in which demands a certain responsibility from the older guardian.
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This power dynamic issue is an issue which is...
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If you've done philosophy and PPE and stuff, yeah?
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I remember doing this when I was in uni as well, yeah?
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Robert Dow, his conception of power, backrats and barats.
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So basically, there are different conceptions of power, yeah?
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From a philosophical perspective, it's difficult to actually track what power is.
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Robert Dow, he said that power is the ability for person A to change person B's ability
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to do what he otherwise doesn't want to do, or something like that.
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Then there's the second layer of power, which is backrats and barats, they advance on it,
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So first of all, when we talk about power dynamics, and obviously, from a philosophical perspective,
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you've got Michael Foucault, who talks about power in a very complicated way.
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But it's very possible to have someone that is under the age of consent, like, in theory,
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consenting to having sex with someone much older than them.
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So they're both technically saying, yes, I want to do this.
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But what I was saying to you is that power, in and of itself, as a concept, as a construct,
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And that's why you've got so many different people defining it in different ways.
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Michael Foucault, Akratzen Barrett, Robert Dow.
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Now, what I'll say to you that, so using this construct, which is power, to deem something
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Because first, you'd have to prove that it exists in a certain way.
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And then you'd have to identify how this power exists in a certain relationship.
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From an atheist, you guys would consider yourself, like, non-religious, yeah?
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So, like, you don't believe in a higher source, yeah?
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I do believe in something that underlies everything.
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I haven't, sort of, I haven't established, I haven't established what this underlying
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something is, but he may be God, but he's a multiplicity of some kind.
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Okay, I'm with you, but can I tell you something, yeah?
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If you don't believe in God, my question to you would be, yeah, a straightforward question,
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In terms of objective morality, do you think you can get objective morality without an all-knowing,
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like, all-wise entity that can dictate them for you?
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I think objective knowledge can still be, sort of, apparent to me through this, sort
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of, rationale of, and reasoning between individuals, which is, like, this underlying something.
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It is an underlying unknown big other that we are none the wiser to.
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So, you're not completely dismissing the fact that there could be an entity out there
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But what I was going to say to you here is, this is my...
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Just like, you know, science bases itself on objective knowledge.
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Well, I mean, to be honest with you, the scientific method doesn't do that, because the scientific
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method itself, it gives you certain knowledge that you can rely on at a certain time period,
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Yeah, yeah, it's not certain truth, but I feel like, you know, in different situations,
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you've reasoned different outcomes to the certain outcomes that you want, right?
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Like, if you're under threat, you wouldn't behave in the same way as if you were unthreatened.
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I'm with you, but my point to you is, like, have you guys read Nietzsche yet?
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But it's a difficult book to read that you agree, yeah?
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Nietzsche, people like Nietzsche, people like Bertrand Russell, philosopher, atheist, people
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So, basically, they don't believe that objective morality exists.
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So, if I said to you, objectively, can you prove that homosexuality is a sin?
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You can't prove it's a good thing to do, from your perspective.
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But I believe that I can prove it's a good thing to do, in the sense that I feel loved,
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I feel empowered, I feel like it gives me a sense of belonging, and I think that through
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expressing my homosexuality, I've been able to be a more authentic version of myself
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So, I think I can prove, in a sense, that it's objective.
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Why do you not think that, because objective morality has a very certain philosophical connotation?
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Yeah, I guess the struggle is that I don't really believe in that many things that are
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objective, and no matter what situation you're in, it is objective.
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But at the same time, I could give you anecdotal and, like, just real-life experiences that
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So, you can, okay, that's fine, I'm not saying that you're subjective.
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It's only subjective because I don't believe in objective morality, and I don't believe
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I'm not saying to you that you're not entitled to that, okay?
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But I'm just saying that, so, it's very difficult for us here, from a non-objective perspective,
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So, even if I say, because you said that it causes me love and this and that, like, I feel
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homosexuality, you said my homosexuality makes me feel X, Y, Z, yeah?
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I'm saying to you that Hitler might have felt good when he was, sorry, but, like, when
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It doesn't mean that, because of that feeling, that necessarily means that what he's doing
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But Hitler might have felt good, but at the same time, killed millions of people.
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I feel good, and, like, I'm not stopping anyone else from living there.
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So, going back to the harm principle, can we prove that liberalism is true, objectively?
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You know, liberalism, the one that we described by John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, you know
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the book, can we prove that that ideology is a true ideology, objectively?
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You guys, this is a good discussion, don't you think?
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Okay, listen, guys, I want to tell you something, yeah?
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Two points I made to you that I want to reiterate.
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When it comes to the issue of homosexuality, I said to you, look, why do you accept that
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so long as you can do whatever you want, so long as you don't harm anyone else, yeah?
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Yeah, yeah, but you said you accept that as a maxim.
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Yeah, I accept it in theory, but at the same time, I accept...
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It's impossible to measure how the ramifications of how you behave affecting other people.
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What I'm saying to you right here and right now is that, first of all, we're not being
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But even if we applied that objective maxim and we put it into practical usage, we've realized
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And you said you don't like it for naturalistic reasons, but what I'm saying to you is that
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I find it problematic that you think that incest and homosexuality are very...
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It's an act that involves, like, very complicated power dynamics of mothers and children.
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I told you before that the word power has philosophical connotations which we have to unpack, and people
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So, Michael Foucault, Robert Dow, and, you know, backtrack to Barrett.
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There's a lot of ambiguity in the sexual attraction.
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There's a lot of ambiguity in the way we relate to each other.
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I think the reason why homosexuality is accepted and incest is not as accepted is because in
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the 1960s and 70s, you had a movement of homosexuals that came out publicly demanding rights, and
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that was listened to by society, and it became the social norm.
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So, had you had the same movement for people that practice incest...
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But then again, the person that wants to be in an incestuous relationship should have
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Okay, you can talk about sort of universalising...
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As I said, like, when you asked me, do you have a problem with incest?
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I said, if someone is of age, if they were 18 years old...
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The man is a 35-year-old man, big man like me, and the mum is, like, you know, 55.
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And they want to get into an incestuous relationship together.
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Like, the mother knew them as a child, and they were a child to them, and they're still
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a child, and the idea of adults having sex with children...
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When she hit 18, he started getting with her, and then he ended up marrying her.
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I genuinely don't think anything's wrong with that.
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But I don't think the relationship there is a relationship of equal power, or a relationship...
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Okay, I'm going to stop using the word power, because that's the only thing you have
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Okay, I don't think the relationship there is one that views the two people as, like,
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equal people, because the mother has taught the son, or the father has taught the daughter,
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But equality is, once again, you can't prove that objectively, can you?
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I can't prove anything to you objectively, because I don't really believe in objective
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Okay, what I'm saying to you is the following, yeah?
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Whatever paradigm we want to work within, we have to be morally consistent, yeah?
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That God revealed a message that he is singular, he is one, etc., etc.
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They came with an evidence base, and they came with a message.
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The message was that he was one, God is one, etc.
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So, there's basically God's expectations we have to be.
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In that message, I'm saying to you that we believe that homosexuality, the act of penetration...
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You can't have penetration if you're having two girls having sex.
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But if you don't have penetration if you're having two girls having sex, is it morally wrong?
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The answer of it is a straightforward question.
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Yeah, so God knows best, so he's telling us it's wrong.
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But if you're saying the act of gay sex is wrong because of the act of penetration...
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The answer from our paradigm is because God said so.
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Therefore, everything that comes from an objective moral perspective is what we follow.
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So, but even if you wanted to use your own words against...
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Because you did mention naturalistic things, yeah?
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Well, I think we agreed upon that at some stage.
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But we could use that very same argument against homosexuals.
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But homosexuality exists in so many different species that existed throughout the whole
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No, but I think it's hard to argue that it's unnatural if it exists in, like, penguins.
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Penguins don't, like, make moralistic decisions.
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No, it's because they don't make a moralistic decision.
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Remember on Maxim that they don't get charged for that.
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The penguin, if he decides to enjoy his, another penguin, a male one, and he was a male penguin,
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I really respect where you guys are coming from because I feel like you...
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Do you know, like, I feel like you've understood my argument.
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So I feel like free discussion and conversation, the one that we've had today, is a vitally
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Can, in your opinion, can, like, Muslims and homosexuals live side by side?
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Look, I mean, the thing is, yeah, this is, I think, one of the biggest misconceptions,
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where people actually feel, because of the things that's happened, yeah, the, like,
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recent incidents and whatnot, that we are out here to kill civilians or something like that.
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It says that there's no compulsion in religion.
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That the truth is very manifestly clear from the falsehood.
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But look, I'll tell you to do one thing, if you don't mind, yeah?
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Can you do me a favor, when you go home, start reading the Quran.
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You're going to have a good insight in the world.
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Because I've done a very similar course in uni, yeah?
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I learned politics that I did a postgraduate in history and things after that.
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there was a lot of, like, philosophy modules and whatnot, yeah?
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I think what will make you an all-rounded person
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is not only to have an idea of politics and philosophy,
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but also to have an understanding of, at least, the world, major world religions.
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But I'm not going to stand outside the test scores, yeah?
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But also, I'm not going to treat you with any disrespect.
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You'll feel that your life is probably going to get better.
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But what if I felt worse being in the closet than out of the closet?
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It's not all about how you feel from a sexual perspective.
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In a sense of, like, me as a whole human being.
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I feel like I'm a more authentic version of myself
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What would be the most authentic version of you?
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You are authentic when you're doing your purpose.