You're going in there and you're picking and choosing what you want from the religion.
This is something that I champion every day. I don't make room for that other shit.
Is it homophobia that's deep within you that you need to unlearn.
You can't get religion right and you can't get life right.
This is a long winded answer to say that you're accepting.
I am an atheist, because I believe that you should face the truth and reality in life instead of relying on or blaming higher beings.
I also don't believe that you need to believe in a God to be a good person.
I'm Muslim, I believe that having faith or having a religion in your life provides a
sense of comfort. It provides a sense of direction. It provides you with a community that you
can rely on sometimes when things are looking a bit down, and things are looking a bit great.
Okay Aamir, tell me what's so great about being an atheist?
Oh, have you got all day darling.
Well, look at me, I get to be free. I get to express myself
in whatever way I can. I've got tattoos, that's my expression. I can wear makeup if I want
to, I don't feel like I am shackled into any rules, I don't feel like I'm suffocating anymore.
And I can be who I was always meant to be. I'm homosexual, and I would not have been able to
marry my husband, although some people will say you could. But for me, I would want to
follow a religion down to a T because I'm a stickler for getting it right.
I think it's really interesting that you said you want to follow something that you want
to get right. You can't get religion right, and you can't get life right. That expectation
of getting it right is what causes people to have a little bitterness towards a religion.
What's so good for you about being religious? There have been a lot of times in my life
where I felt lost, or I felt really overwhelmed, really sad. It's helped me through heartbreak.
I couldn't share with my mom, I couldn't share with my sister, how I was feeling. I had my
friends, for sure, but come on, you can only talk about a boy so much. In that situation,
I turned to God, like I turned to faith to know that like Allah is out there, sharing
my sadness. It just provides me that extra layer of support that sometimes I feel like
the world can't provide me. It also really just kind of gives me a bit more structure
with my moral decisions sometimes.
Why? Why can't you be your own moral compass?
Why can't you be a good person without faith? I don't think that faith is so much as
a prerequisite for you to be a good person. I do see faith and religion being quite organic.
It's more about how you adapt it into your day to day life.
I see what you're saying in the sense of you adopt it into your everyday life. But to me,
that's sort of a pick and mix. You're going in there and you're picking and choosing what
you want from the religion to suit your life.
In terms of like the LGBTQIA community, like
that is a hot topic when it comes to Muslims, when it comes to anyone really. My view on
it is you should be able to do what you want, you should be able to kind of navigate this
life as you want. Because you're the one who's living it.
I've known people that have been completely abandoned by every single person in their
family due to their religious beliefs, that have literally said to their kids, well, if
we didn't believe in religion, if we didn't believe in Islam, we would have accepted you,
but we have to put the word of God first. And I don't know what you think to that.
I think that's bad. It's not something that I can agree with.
What if you happened to have a child that was part of the LGBT community? How would you feel about that?
Yeah. Oh, me?
Yeah! How would you feel about that?
I mean, I think I'd have to, again, it'd be difficult, I'd be like, okay, cool there's this situation like.
So what makes it difficult though?
It makes it difficult because of my upbringing.
We do inherit certain thoughts from our parents who have then inherited it from their parents,
because that's how they've been brought up. So I think even though yeah I'm super like
accepting things like that, it would be a complete lie to tell you I'd be like, yeah,
cool, calm, calm, calm it'll be fine. Because I still have inherited bias, where I've been,
not taught, but I've been made to feel like maybe a certain way towards someone if that makes sense.
So what kind of way would you feel towards someone?
Not make a certain way to feel but like,
So you have absorbed emotion and feeling that's negative towards the queer community?
Not but yeah, like an awareness of it, not the feeling of being... do you know what I mean?
See, this is the one answer from you that I'm finding difficult.
Sure.
And the reason why is because this is a long winded answer to say that you're accepting.
I am accepting.
Yeah, it's a long winded answer.
So if you asked me this question, like, you know, if you had an
I think you're right.
if you had an LGBTQ+ child, I would be honest and say, you
know what, this is gonna be tough. Yeah, this is really tough but I'm gonna fucking protect
you, and this is what we're gonna do. But what I wanna pick on, you kept saying and
you're like, oh, because of things passed down, but but you missing sort of the language
and the wording and like, so what's passed down? Is it homophobia that's inherently in
you, deep within you, that you need to unlearn then and unpick, I don't know I'm struggling here.
No, I think that's a really valid point, you make
a really valid point, and I think that that is, that maybe does exist in me, do you know what
I mean, because of the culture that I've been raised in and the fact that you said that
it's really scary for me to admit, because this is something that I champion every day,
like, I don't make room for that other shit, you know? So it is a bit scary to me to think
that, oh, shit, like, I might have that inside of me. Like, even if it's a modicum of something, it's there.
It's brave of you to say that as well, because
people are so scared to say it and I'm like there's nothing wrong with saying it, like, we're all
fucked! No, we all have to keep learning and unlearning and changing and adapting, because
it's the only way we're gonna progress in society. I love that. Thanks man!
No, 100%.
I think it has been very valuable to have a conversation with someone of faith with
progressive views. When Salwa was struggling with the LGBT thing, I thought "I've got her!".
No I didn't really. Honestly, that moment was the moment where I was like, oh my god,
she's being so honest here and I respect that. I would rather be atheist. For me, it brings
me the freedom that I would want and I enjoy in life.
We inherit kind of traumas and biases and beliefs from our previous generations. I came
to the realisation that I may have a small seedling of homophobia, which for me was insanely
scary and insanely uncomfortable, and actually really quite upsetting because it's something
that I don't want to embody at all. I don't think that that realisation made me doubt
how I feel about religion. I think it made me doubt how I feel about my culture. It actually
encourages me and motivates me to be an even bigger positive force, as a person of faith.
I'd still rather be religious.
I think it's just great to meet and talk to someone that is religious, has a faith,
but it's individual to you. And because you're here,
there's many more of you out there, and you're completely accepting.
In a Venn diagram of things, we still both share like communal ideals of wanting to push
forward for generational change and to create a more open community and a more transparent
community, and to foster conversation. And I think