Dallas Vigil for the Orlando pulse massacre exploited by Imam Omar Suleiman. Asks Allah to forgive his participation.
Knowing the uncritical thinking and giggly sentimentialism of the local LGBT leadership he was able to work to get homophobic Muslims off the hook for Islamic homophobia.
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It is appalling that Omar Suleiman was able to worm his way into the vigil for the Orlando Pulse Massacre victimes.
The whole story is summarized in this article by a Muslim at Real Clear Religion.
Real Clear Religion, August, 2023, “When Faith Leaders Change Their Minds, Who Can Muslim Voters Trust?.”
The article relates how he at one point said all sorts of things as a civil rights chaplain and as a speaker at the Dallas Orlando Pulse Massacre vigil in 2015.
When celebrity Texas-based Islamic faith leader Sheikh Omar Suleiman posted a 30-minute mea culpa video in June recanting all his progressive activism relating to the LGBTQ community, he left liberal allies and progressive Muslims floundering in dismay. The video, released during Pride Month, has now racked up over half a million views and raises questions about the role of spiritual leaders in political activism. [Boldface added.]
Suleiman was feted by some liberals and Democrats thanks to his inclusive messaging, including his outreach to the gay community. In 2016, when Omar Mateen massacred 49 people at the Pulse Bar in Orlando, Suleiman helped organize a statement of condemnation signed by Muslim scholars and community leaders. And he went further. He attended a press conference in his home state and later a vigil outside the Resource Center, a Dallas-based gay social services facility, where he addressed more than a thousand people.
Many activists still recall his searing words about human rights and dignity. “We are determined to cry together, to pray together, to stand together – straight, gay, Floridian, and Texan,” he read from a prepared statement. In an off-the-cuff remark, Suleiman also added, “This right here is America. Take a look around you. This is the future of America, and no bigot or terrorist is going to stop that.”
The author refers to Suleiman’s video as a “kick in the teeth to LGBTQ advocacy groups and it is.” She also points out that in May 2023 he joined a great many scholars and signed an Islamic anti-LGBT manifesto.
Video mentioned by RealClearReligion shows him to be a total enemy of the LGBT.
Regrets his statements at the vigil for the Orlando Pulse Victims.
This is the 30 minute video mentioned in the RealClearReligion article above. The answer to the question is NO.
Transcript English auto-generated. The large heading font sections are added into the agenda in their YouTube editing.
Introduction
0:00 foreign
0:06 so like the last video
0:08 um I thought it would be useful here to
0:10 actually go ahead and just group a few
0:12 questions together on a singular topic
0:15 and uh this video I basically put
0:19 together the questions that I've gotten
0:21 about the LGBT issue so LGBT agenda the
0:24 LGBT ideology
0:27 um activism alliances coalitions where
0:30 we stand in regards to you know young
0:32 Muslims that are struggling what we do
0:34 with colleagues and co-workers so a lot
0:36 of questions naturally uh come in about
0:38 this and also my own personal stances
0:39 and my own personal views on some of
0:41 these things so I put together about
0:44 nine of them uh that have come through
0:47 and shot lotsahara and hopefully you
0:49 know even though there'll be short
0:50 answers but then now you'll find some
0:52 benefit in it so the first one is
Do you support the LGBT Agenda?
0:54 actually directed towards me do you
0:56 support the LGBT agenda
1:00 I do not so that means I don't
1:04 religiously socially politically and I
1:07 do believe it's important for us
1:09 collectively as a community to actually
1:11 oppose any agenda or ideology that is
1:15 contrary to the quranism so that's my
1:17 personal View and that is of course I
1:20 think the view of um the imams uh all
1:23 around North America and any Muslim
1:25 that's committed to the Quran and the
1:27 Sunnah okay so question number two can I
[Summary: Omar Suleiman is opposed not only to being LGBT, but any and all movements that might work to support them or give them social justice and acceptance in society and he further believes that any Muslim who is faithful to the Quran must believe this.]
Can I support LGBT rights politically even though I disagree with it morally?
1:30 support LGBT rights politically even
1:32 though I disagree with it morally and
1:35 the answer is absolutely not look I've
1:38 written about this in an article in 2020
1:40 on Japan and I've spoken about this in
1:42 multiple podcasts and multiple articles
1:45 and I want to be very clear here that
1:47 Muslims should not be asked to nor
1:50 should Muslims participate in anything
1:52 that undermines their Deen so you cannot
1:55 be asked to separate between your
1:57 religious conscience and your political
1:58 and your moral principles and so that
2:01 means if you're a Muslim politician an
2:03 activist if you're even just a lay
2:05 person do not find yourself promoting
2:08 anything that directly contradicts The
2:11 Deen that directly is advocating for
2:14 essentially a Prohibition from Allah so
2:17 any legislation that supports a supposed
2:20 right to do something that is directly
2:24 prohibited in the Deen is not something
2:25 that you can get involved in and it's
2:27 something that we should abstain from
2:28 all together as Muslims question number
[Summary: Muslims are unfaithful if they in anyway support the human rights of the LGBT]
Can we as Muslims form an alliance with LGBT groups because they support our rights as Muslims?
2:31 three can we as Muslims form an alliance
2:33 with LGBT groups because they support
2:35 our rights as Muslims and the answer to
2:38 that once again is of course not
2:40 how can we find from the son of the
2:42 Prophet saws any justification for
2:45 allying with a group that exists on the
2:48 basis of a cause that is in direct
2:50 contradiction to his message so we have
2:52 to as Muslims operate on the basis of
2:55 principles not some sort of political
2:57 tribalism it's not you scratch my back
3:00 and I scratch yours it's we have certain
3:02 causes we have certain issues we have
3:06 our own principles that we operate with
3:08 and that's the basis that we're going to
3:10 engage Society with now a good follow-up
[Summary: No alliances with Gay groups under any circumstances.]
There is more where he expresses his anti-LGBT group.
He regrets his participation in the vigil for the Orlando massacre.
He asks that Allah forgive him for his participation in the vigil.
14:08 my GPS I got there and they said well
14:10 you should read the statement and we
14:12 would frequently gather after a mass
14:13 shooting because
14:15 um you know we obviously don't want this
14:17 to result in backlash against the Muslim
14:20 Community and I was there to condemn
14:21 violence and I still condemn violence
14:23 and condemn vigilantism that was an
14:25 awful thing that happened but I got
14:27 there they said we've got a statement on
14:28 behalf of all the faith leaders we want
14:31 you to read the statement
14:32 I look back at that and I wish first of
14:36 all as a Muslim Community we didn't
14:37 accept the premise of that so quickly
14:39 right and I think that's the spirit in
14:41 which a lot of the posts and the Orlando
14:43 statement so many things came out
14:45 I also wish personally I would have
14:47 handled that differently now I don't
14:48 think it's fair that that is clipped and
14:50 used to suggest that I participated in a
14:53 pride rally today right or that it was
14:55 something that it's not but at the same
14:57 time
14:58 I should have been more judicious about
15:00 my words I should have been more careful
15:01 and I ask Allah's forgiveness so what I
15:04 do now is
15:06 you know 2019 to
15:09 2023 where we're at right now
15:12 alhamdulillah I've had a chance to
15:14 really step away and who I am now is
15:17 very different and what I participate in
15:21 now is very very different and I can
15:23 actually look back and I did actually
15:25 look back in my calendar to see what
15:27 I've participated in since 2019 since
This is his homophobic organization.
He is a member of this homophobic organization and is part of their mental health group which includes treating homosexuality.
The local sentimental social justice cosplayers feel for his game entirely.
Dallas Voice, June 13, 2016, “DFW community gathers to mourn victims of Orlando shooting.”
The massacre was the largest mass shooting in U.S. history.
Clergy from different faiths — including Christianity, Judaism and Islam as well as representatives of the Buddhist and Hindu communities — spoke at the vigil to say there is no place for religious intolerance in our country.An imam from the Valley Ranch Islamic Center said that when his community was targeted, the LGBT community stood against Islamophobia. He was attending the vigil on Sunday, he said, to support the LGBT community.
This statement contradicts what he later said in his video that there absolutely couldn’t be any alliance at all with the LGBT.
https://dallasvoice.com/dfw-community-gathers-mourn-victims-orlando-shooting/
Omar Suleiman’s so-called “solidarity” was quoted by the Dallas News, June 12, 2016, “Woman in ‘Pride’ shirt threatens several people at Fort Worth mosque, police say.”
"On behalf of the Muslim community, we stand in solidarity with the LGBTQ community," said Omar Suleiman, a resident scholar at the Valley Ranch Islamic Center. "We completely reject this hate and this fear that outsiders seek to instill within our community, within our country."
Fox News, June 12, 2016, “Local Muslim leaders call for solidarity with the LGBT community.”
Omar Suleiman with the Valley Ranch Islamic Center joined Jewish and Christian faith leaders outside the resource center in Oak Lawn.
"We are determined to cry together, to pray together, to stand together – straight, gay, Floridian and Texan,” Suleiman said.
I actually attended the main vigil in Dallas on the night of the attack. I spoke in Oak Lawn in front of the resource center about solidarity, meaning that no one should be a target. It should be obvious that no one should be killed, no one should be targeted and violently attacked for how they choose to live their lives and for their own beliefs whether, they’re theological in nature or social.
Reading the whole interview carefully, you see that his concern is that the Muslim community not be blamed for the massacre in Orlando, but nothing more.
https://www.fox4news.com/news/local-muslim-leaders-call-for-solidarity-with-the-lgbt-community
Dallas News, June 16, 2016, “Q&A: Islamic scholar Omar Suleiman on the Quran and homosexuality.”
I did go and stand in solidarity with the LGBTQ community. Because the idea of homophobia, which is a real problem in this country, is that people should be targeted as less than human because they choose to live their lives in a particular way, and I think that’s what’s problematic.
It’s just like anti-semitism. And this is what I say to my own Muslim community is that if a church is attacked or if a synagogue is attacked, we will rush to stand in solidarity with our Christian brothers, with our Jewish brothers. We have stood by the principle of the sanctity of life in this country. We absolutely cannot let anyone be treated differently because of their set of beliefs, or because of the way that they choose to live their lives. Islam recognizes that there’s a lot of nuance in these topics.
D Magazine saw him as a hero, June 1, 2017, “The Preacher.”
Faith Forward Dallas coalesced after the shootings at Charleston’s Emanuel A.M.E. Church, in June 2015, when they came together to support Waters, who lost friends that day. Since then, they have stood together in Irving when armed protesters showed up in front of Suleiman’s mosque, in Oak Lawn in solidarity with the LGBTQ community after the Pulse nightclub attack, in South Dallas to offer aid and comfort to victims of gun violence. [Boldface added.]
https://www.dmagazine.com/publications/d-magazine/2017/july/the-preacher-imam-omar-suleiman/
LGBT, with friends like Omar Suleiman, you don’t need enemies.
There was touted in the press a statement by hundreds of Muslim leaders.
Now when you go to the webpage, nothing is there.
You have to go to the Internet Archive to find it.
https://web.archive.org/web/20170705172033/https:/orlandostatement.com/
Prior to the Vigil, Omar Suleiman had a homophobic record, and people knew.
This is what I could find on Omar Suleiman’s page.
This is the upsetting article. “US Views on gays, lesbians shift sharpley,” Futurity, Oct. 5, 2011.
This was a Facebook comment made by Suleiman in 2013. This was archived by Americans for Peace and Tolerance.
https://www.peaceandtolerance.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2016/05/os2.jpg
In 2013. Suleiman the comedian.
In 2013.
Americans for Peace and Tolerance had a report, “The Case Against ISB.”
https://www.peaceandtolerance.org/the-case-against-the-isb/
You can download the report. From the report dated April 2016.
Other recent speakers at the ISB have included Tariq Ramadan, a Muslim Brotherhood writer and public commentator who has said killing Israeli schoolchildren is “contextually explicable”;182 and Omar Suleiman, who describes homosexuality as a “disease” and a “repugnant shameless sin.” 183
https://www.peaceandtolerance.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2016/05/v2-FINAL-June-2016.pdf
Indulging in sentimental happy fantasies, the local leadership gave Suleiman a free pass and allowed him to exploit the virgil.
They wanted to act out happy drama of being this or that virtue and ideology.
It isn’t Islamaphobia when they wish your destruction and feel you are totally unacceptable.
The episode of “Rick and Morty” makes a very relevant point about sentimental sugary sappy feelings and what they might hide.
The alien lifeform is liberated by Morty and it likes to sign this happy song. However, the reality is that the alien life form plans to exterminate all the carbon base life forms in the universe. The alien life form adopts the name Fart. Omar Suleiman is the terrestial version of Fart for the LGBT.
Starting at about 1:22 the alien lifeform informs Morty that they regard carbon lifeforms a disease.
Conclusion:
It would be good if the LGBT leadership considered critically issues and facts and not engage in silly sentimentalities to feel good about themselves and make them happy at the expene of the humanity of the LGBT.