Pride and anger

LGBTQ fight has some conservative Muslims making unexpected allies

There’s an eclectic crowd blocking traffic at a busy intersection in front of city hall.

Middle-aged women in hijabs stand next to seniors wearing Tshirts inscribed with biblical passages. Alongside them, parents and children hold signs that read “Let Kids Be Kids.”

As drivers honk and shout at demonstrators to clear the road, a pair of young men dance, hand in hand, across the street while waving a blue and pink flag, seemingly indifferent to the tension around them.

This protest in downtown Calgary, one of several organized by a group called YYC Muslims, is meant to oppose schools teaching what the demonstrators call “gender ideology.” It’s attracted a sizable crowd with scores of supporters, as well as an equal if not greater number of counterprotesters, a diverse group dominated by teenagers and 20-somethings holding Pride flags and dressed in rainbow attire.

There are things that catch the eye when surveying the divided crowd. Among them, protesters on both sides can be seen wearing the keffiyeh. The checkered scarf is a symbol of the Palestinian liberation movement and has also been embraced by the left as a show of progressive solidarity.

At one point, a small boy steps up to the podium and is handed a microphone by Mahmoud Mourra, one of this protest’s main organizers, and a man whose tactics have energized some, offended others, and attracted the attention of American media — as well as local police.

The boy’s Spider-Man shirt reads: “With great power comes great responsibility.”

“You guys are destroying the family,” the youngster says, his words sounding carefully rehearsed. “You guys are not protecting us … leave us alone!”

The crowd erupts with chants of “Leave our kids alone!” which are met with a similar request from counterprotesters — “Leave queer kids alone!”

Pride events this year saw protests in parts of Canada over drag artists reading books to children, LGBTQ events in schools, and classroom lessons about sexual and religious diversity.

What the Calgary demonstrations have particularly cast a spotlight on, however, has been an alliance between two communities not typically seen as natural allies: conservative Christians and conservative Muslims.

Aziz Wadya, a Muslim Canadian who immigrated from Egypt, says he attended the protest because he was tired of seeing Pride flags raised “on every street” and in Parliament.

“When I came here 22 years ago, the Christians were the majority and I was a Muslim,” Wadya says.

“They did not force the agenda to teach my kid Christianity. They respected my identity, even though they were the majority,” he adds. “Now, less than one per cent of the population force their agenda on every single one of us.”

Wadya is referring to the less than one per cent of Canadians who identify as transgender. But when it comes to Canadians’ broad support for LGBTQ rights, the majority are in favour. A 2021 Ipsos poll found that 75 per cent of Canadians support same-sex marriage and 81 per cent back same-sex couples’ right to adopt.

Trans rights are more contentious, especially when it comes to children; for example, a separate poll suggested that 57 per cent of

‘‘ Now, less than one per cent of the population force their agenda on every single one of us.

AZIZ WADYA MUSLIM

CANADIAN WHO ATTENDED THE PROTEST IN CALGARY

Canadians believe schools should inform parents if a child discusses changing their gender pronouns or transitioning, while 47 per cent said schools should have to place “sensitive gender identity and race related materials” online so parents can view them ahead of time.

To some, the recent protests have been an example of conservative Muslims pushing back against causes championed by the left — which have in the past included standing against Islamophobia — amid concerns that prevailing progressive ideals conflict with their religious teachings.

To others, it has tones of political manipulation, with members of a minority group being used to mask a larger push toward intolerance.

To Joe Schellenberg, one of those attending this Calgary protest, it’s a “revival.”

“I’m so happy we can come together on this … One Muslim lady came up to me earlier and just blessed me, put her hand on me as a Christian, and I just felt that was a very sweet moment,” says Schellenberg, his hat reading “His Blood, Your Life, Jesus Christ.”

The protests in Calgary are snapshots of what appears to be a larger trend of some Muslims refusing to stand on the sidelines when it comes to their opposition to LGBTQ representation in schools.

Last month, there were numerous reports of Muslim parents keeping their kids home in protest of recognizing or celebrating Pride events in schools, including in Ottawa, Edmonton and London, Ont. There was also a notable presence of Muslim parents and their children at an anti-Pride rally in Ottawa in June, where a clip of what appeared to be Muslim children stomping on Pride flags went viral.

And it’s not the first time some Muslim parents have been outspoken on social issues.

Conservative Muslims speaking out

The 14-page booklet with bright illustrations might look no different from any other educational material in a classroom or library.

But when the pamphlet titled “I’m Muslim and I might not be straight” was posted online, it attracted enough criticism to land in the crosshairs of a national newspaper column and to receive complaints from parents. An archived web page shows the booklet was removed from the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board’s 2SLGBTQ+ Supports last month.

The board says it removed the booklet because Muslim community members expressed that they felt singled out by the material.

It’s a recent illustration of how socially conservative Muslims have added their voices to a cacophony of criticism toward teaching about gender and sexual diversity in schools. One of the most visible previous examples was their presence at protests about Ontario’s updated sex-ed curriculum in 2014. Campaign Life Coalition, a nationwide socially conservative lobby group that supports protests against what it calls a “radical sex curriculum,” says that was the last time it had seen such large crowds in opposition to what’s being taught in schools.

“This year the engagement by Muslim communities in Ontario has been very strong,” says Jack Fonseca, director of political operations for Campaign Life Coalition. “However, the Muslim communities in Edmonton and Calgary have been new ones for us. And they’ve been very active.”

In Calgary earlier this month, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau waded into the conversation in a clip that has since gone viral, telling a group of Muslims at a sit-down meeting that misinformation about what is actually being taught in schools was being pushed by right-wing American media — a statement that news outlets such as Fox News and the New York Post seized upon as evidence of Trudeau’s own intolerance toward opposing views.

It would be facile and inaccurate to suggest there is a consensus regarding LGBTQ issues and individuals across a community as large and as diverse as Canada’s Muslim population. Much like Christianity and other religions and cultures, there is a spectrum of views and beliefs, with the more conservative typically skewing against teaching about sexual and gender diversity in schools.

Prominent Muslim organizations have weighed in publicly, however, expressing their belief that Islam condemns homosexual acts and relationships. Some Muslim commentators have also pushed back against any notion that they’re somehow dupes in a larger society conversation. They insist the kind of protests being seen in Calgary are a matter of faith.

That’s certainly how the main organizer of the demonstrations sees it.

‘I pulled my kids out of school’

Mourra, a heavy-set man with a neatly trimmed white beard, is the main organizer behind the Calgary protests; he said his intention is to protect the Canada he knows and loves — he refers to it as “heaven.”

A mechanic by trade, he moved here from Lebanon in 2001 and says he was drawn to this issue when he was on a school parent council in 2016 and learned schools would be forbidden from informing parents if their children joined a Gay-Straight Alliance, the result of a policy enacted by the previous Alberta NDP government in 2017.

“I pulled my kids out of school right away and started homeschooling,” says Mourra, a father of five.

He says this issue became more urgent for him when a friend’s 11year-old child started telling people they identified as a girl. According to Mourra, the family packed up and moved to Jordan.

“Kids cannot even vote,” he says. “For him to say ‘I decided to change my sexual identity,’ or to go behind the parent — teaching the kids how to lie or to hide stuff from their parents, this is absolutely unethical.”

He insists his focus is on protecting children from being exposed to materials or topics that he believes are inappropriate for their age.

“Leave our kids alone. After they’re 18, do whatever you have to do.”

Mourra says he’s been surprised by the support he’s received, from groups he didn’t think would join the cause, including an evangelical church, the political activism group Take Back Alberta and Freedom Convoy types.

“I felt so shocked when I saw the people who used to scream against us and make fun of our religion, mopping the floor with us, to come to our protest and say Allahu akbar,” Mourra says.

Mourra is not opposed to using fear tactics and extreme rhetoric that many would find grossly offensive to galvanize his supporters; he compared children being taught lessons about sexual and gender diversity without parental consent to Indigenous children being forcibly removed from home and placed into residential schools, and has said if people stay silent about their children, there are “predators” waiting to take their place.

He told the Star he is concerned with what they’re teaching in schools because he believes kids can be swayed into believing they’re gay or transgender.

LGBTQ community members and advocates reject the notion that a child could be “swayed” into changing their gender or sexual identity, and research clearly demonstrates the significant harm that societal prejudice and family rejection has on LGBTQ people, particularly youth.

Mourra acknowledges he doesn’t believe gender dysphoria is real and that he’d be upset if his child was gay.

“If my son decides to be gay tomorrow, I’m going to be hurt for the rest of my life,” he says. “But that is his choice when he’s an adult and he’s mature enough to know this is the right decision.”

Mourra said he has experienced religious discrimination as a Muslim, but when asked, said he doesn’t see a contradiction between coming to a country like Canada for acceptance and freedom while targeting teachings about inclusion for another minority group.

“If your freedom allows you to interfere with my privacy, with how I raise my kid, then it’s not freedom.”

Mourra is no stranger to political activism. He’s spoken in the media before about Islamophobia and in support of Alberta’s United Conservative Party, and is also a supporter of the federal Conservatives. But his recent conduct has stirred controversy and landed him in legal trouble: Calgary police have charged Mourra with hate-motivated criminal harassment in connection to “multiple online interactions,” they said.

Mourra has disputed the validity of the charge and says he looks forward to disproving it in court.

Muslims who beg to differ

There are Muslims in Calgary who say the protesters aren’t an accurate representation of the Muslim community, and who believe people are being used as pawns as part of a political strategy.

One of those people is Saima Jamal — she started speaking out about how she felt the issue was being politicized and says she experienced a flood of online harassment connected to posts about her on the YYC Muslims Facebook group, including from Mourra.

She says that during the past provincial election, which brought the United Conservative Party of Danielle Smith back to office, conservatives were seizing upon the sensitivity of this issue to garner votes.

“UCP (supporters) used this topic immensely to provoke Muslim religious sentiments to vote conservative, saying if you vote UCP, your children are going to be saved from the LGBTQ2+ agenda. If you vote NDP, they are going to become gay and trans and their religious freedom will be lost,” Jamal says.

She says people are using WhatsApp and Facebook groups to galvanize Muslims around this issue. A common scenario is someone posts an obscure unverified viral video alleging that schools are teaching masturbation to children, or that they’re sending children home with books depicting explicit sexual acts.

“That will get parents all riled up even though in reality when you talk to actual teachers, there is no such evidence of that,” Jamal says. “Lies and misinformation are being blatantly used to manipulate parents … Muslims are getting weaponized and exploited everywhere to vote conservative by using this issue.”

In response to a question about whether she believes this issue is being exploited for political gain, Smith said in an emailed statement that kids need to feel safe and supported in schools.

“These are really important and delicate issues that kids are struggling with and I don’t think it does anybody any good for it to be politicized the way it has been … We will continue to listen to parents, students, teachers and other professionals to ensure our schools are inclusive and welcoming for all students while respecting the fundamental role parents play in the education and development of their children.”

‘‘ In my opinion, that’s where it’s getting into a dangerous zone — if I don’t support you, that means I’m not a true Muslim?

SAM NAMMOURA POPULAR CALGARY PODCASTER

Sam Nammoura, a popular Calgary podcaster, says he was disappointed in the last provincial election to hear statements accusing people of being fake Muslims if they voted NDP.

“In my opinion, that’s where it’s getting into a dangerous zone — if I don’t support you, that means I’m not a true Muslim?” Nammoura says.

There is, certainly, an undercurrent of politics to the conversation. Trudeau has been the face of a more progressive federal government, and he’s a deeply polarizing character, nowhere more so than in Alberta.

Those protesting LGBTQ issues have in many cases linked Trudeau to what they’re seeing in schools and public spaces. At a Calgary rally on July 7, a child could be seen waving a F--- Trudeau flag while a speaker on stage talks about indoctrination in schools.

Nammoura supports people’s right to protest but believes demonstrations against “gender ideology” in schools threaten to burn the bridges Muslims have been building with fellow Canadians for decades.

“The number one fear tactic the far right uses against immigrants and Muslims is — why are you bringing those people here?” Nammoura says. “They’re going to come here and change our culture … They want to force polygamy, they want to force halal meat, they want to convert you to Islam, they want to kill gays.

“So now the right wing can say, I told you so.”

Echoes of U.S. debates

In the United States, this conversation, as is seemingly the case with all conversations, has been louder and more heated.

Last month, Edward Ahmed Mitchell, an executive at the Council for American-Islamic Relations, pushed back against MSNBC pundit Jen Psaki’s contention that the Republican Party was using trans issues to drive a wedge between Muslims and progressives.

In a recent Fox News segment, host Laura Ingraham, who has a documented history of making blatantly Islamophobic remarks, welcomed Muslim parent Kareem Monib on her show to highlight the new supposed alliance.

“Us Catholics and other Christians, other people of faith have been waiting for the Muslims to step up on this issue,” she says to a smiling and nodding Monib.

The way it’s played out in Canada has been more muted. The National Council of Canadian Muslims, whose website says it advocates for Muslims who have experienced human rights and civil liberties violations, strongly criticized a statement from a teacher who was recorded telling a Muslim student in Edmonton that they don’t belong in this country if they don’t support Canadian values, including LGBTQ rights.

But the council has made no public statement on how Muslim parents should navigate the issue of Pride events or lessons about sexual and gender diversity in schools, nor did it respond to multiple requests for comment.

In what was one of few Canadian public statements directly addressing the subject from a Muslim organization, a mosque in London, Ont., issued a statement May 31 citing a letter signed by various Islamic organizations and scholars called “Navigating Differences,” which, in a nutshell, says Islam unequivocally condemns homosexual acts and relationships.

While there are Muslims who disagree with this interpretation, the letter was signed by nine prominent Canadian Islamic organizations, including the Canadian Council of Imams and the Muslim Association of Canada.

In its statement, the London Council of Imams says “public schools should not be taking positions to promote a certain set of

values and beliefs at the expense of others,” and that parents shouldn’t be deemed intolerant if they choose to exempt their children from activities “deemed contrary to our faith values and beliefs.”

The Star did not hear back from seven out of nine Muslim Canadian organizations that signed the Navigating Differences letter — one responded and suggested emailing the organization who wrote the letter for comment.

The second response was from Syed Soharwardy, a well-known Calgary imam, who signed the letter in his position as president and founder of the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada. When reached directly by the Star, he says he’s against “all forms of discrimination, whether it’s Islamophobia, homophobia, anti-Semitism, antiChristian, whatever.”

But he says he believes teaching about gender diversity in schools is inappropriate for children.

“I came across three to four girls and boys in my masjid where the parents came and said this child is confused,” Soharwardy says. “I have seen and I have spoken to those children who are six, seven, eight years old and they just perceive it differently. And they get confused about their own gender.”

Trans community members and advocates strongly disagree with equating gender dysphoria with kids being “confused,” contending that stymying the expression of children who identify with a gender different from what they were assigned at birth can cause long-term psychological damage.

Some say that the Islamic view of such issues, however, isn’t as simple as some are making it out to be.

Debates within Islam

While the Navigating Differences letter highlights a conventional Islamic view — that sexual relations are only permitted in a lawful marriage between a man and woman and that medical transitions are only allowed for people with “biological ambiguities” — there are also Islamic scholars who point out that there is precedent in the Islamic tradition for recognizing non-binary genders, such as the khuntha, or someone with both sex organs (or hermaphrodite).

There have been debates in Islamic jurisprudence on whether a khuntha could lead prayers, a role traditionally restricted to men, says Anver Emon, Canada Research Chair in Islamic Law and History and director of the Institute of Islamic Studies at the University of Toronto.

“On the one hand, we might look at the khuntha biologically as somebody with two sex organs. But legally, what was really interesting is that the sex organs were less relevant than a gendered construction of the khuntha,” Emon says.

“Jurists will say could a khuntha lead prayers? And they will say, well, it depends if they primarily present as male, or they primarily present as female … this idea of primarily present is a gendered construction of what does it mean to present as male and female,” he says.

Junaid Jahangir, an economics professor at MacEwan University and co-author of “Islamic Law and Muslim Same-Sex Unions,” has written about how there is precedent of non-binary gender identities being recognized in Islamic societies, such as mukhannathun (effeminate men) and the khuntha.

Jahangir, who is gay and Muslim, was not available for an interview because he was abroad, but told the Star in an email that mainstream Islamic discourse on LGBTQ issues doesn’t capture the full spectrum of views on the subject.

“Islamic texts offered such individuals prayer space between the rows of men and women. Even in recent times, there was a fatwa (religious edict) by a Sunni group of clerics in Pakistan permitting them to marry. This is apart from the permission on gender reassignment surgery from the highest bodies of both Sunni and Shia Islam,” he said.

“The Muslim position on gender and sexual variance is far more diverse than what the Christian right and the Muslim right would like us to believe.”

In an op-ed Jahangir wrote for rabble.ca, he says the “binary us versus them” narrative needs to be dismantled.

“Just as non-Muslims respecting Ramadan does not mean that they would adopt the Islamic faith, so too Muslims showing up for Pride events does not mean that they would turn gay or adopt a gender variant identity,” he said.

Dismay on the left

Left-wing activists, meanwhile, who say they have long fought against all forms of discrimination, including Islamophobia, have found the alliance baffling.

Reanna Teske, a counterprotester whose child is non-binary, says she has personally attended many protests for progressive causes, including countering Islamophobia. She says it’s disheartening to see Muslims, whose rights she fought for, standing side by side with the same people who previously demonized them.

“Literally to the day six years ago, we were protesting here ... because an anti-Muslim group was meant to be doing a pig roast,” Teske says. “And it’s literally the same people who are standing up there now.”

Tara Ramsey says she joined the counterprotest in Calgary because she was hearing the same fear tactics being used against teaching gender and sexual diversity as she did about tolerating Muslim children in public schools.

“These are the same people who were telling us 20 years ago that if you let those Muslim kids in your nice Catholic schools, oh my God, they’re gonna corrupt your children and they’re going to turn your children into Muslims and they’re all going to be praying five times a day,” she says.

There are parallels that can be drawn between the demonization of Muslims in the media and how trans rights, in particular, have become the latest cause for some on the right.

The targeting of minority groups leads to more than just rhetoric — in the U.S., by 2017, more than 200 anti-sharia bills had been proposed; in 2023 alone, more than 500 antiLGBTQ bills were tabled in state legislatures across the country.

Protesters such as Teske, and activists who spoke to the Star off the record, have expressed concerns about extremists infiltrating the protests.

Many people at the protests said they were there as concerned parents. But there were also uglier tones; the Star witnessed numerous expressions of hate — people calling counterprotesters “groomers,” pedophiles, child abusers and in one case homophobic slurs. A man wearing a shirt that read “Speak English or Die” was confronted by counterprotesters as he yelled homophobic slurs.

Unlikely allies

“You are deceivers! The smell of death is upon you!” shouts Larry Heather at a young racialized woman holding a rainbow folding fan at the June 24 protest.

Heather is perhaps best known for spraying abortion rights advocate Henry Morgentaler with ketchup in 1985.

A well-known face at far-right protests in Calgary and a perennial fringe candidate for parties such as the Christian Heritage Party of Canada, he has spent decades railing against abortion, cyclists and gay-straight alliances, and unsuccessfully tried to have Naheed Nenshi’s re-election as mayor overturned.

In a Vice News article from 2013, he is quoted as having posted on his campaign website “In light of the recent Islamic terrorist attacks does it make sense for Calgary voters to endorse a Mayor who will and has sworn into Office with his hand on the Koran? (sic).”

He says he attended the Calgary protest because he believes family values are under attack in Canada, and that he’s not surprised to see religious minorities standing up for what he believes are diminishing freedoms.

“They come here expecting the kind of freedom that only Christian culture can provide and they see it slipping away before their very eyes,” he says.

He says while he doesn’t agree with all aspects of Islam, he finds more in common with Muslims than those supporting LGBTQ rights.

“We have a certain moral cause because they both originate in the mosaic of Abrahamic religions.”

Of what he calls the “homosexual crowd” he says: “We cannot abide them. We cannot find harmony with them.”

‘‘

UCP (supporters) used this topic immensely to provoke Muslim religious sentiments to vote conservative, saying if you vote UCP, your children are going to be saved from the LGBTQ2+ agenda. If you vote NDP, they are going to become gay and trans and their religious freedom will be lost.

‘The friend of my enemy’

Soharwardy, the Calgary imam, says he condemns anyone using the protests as an opportunity to spread hate. He argues teaching about tolerance of sexual minorities is not the same as teaching about tolerance of religious minorities.

“Teaching about a religion or the festivals of a religion is way different than a lifestyle or intimate relationship between two people — these are apples and oranges,” he says.

Organizers should be careful about how they get their message across and who they welcome on board, he says.

“I’m not in favour of creating an alliance with those extremist people who look for opportunities to fight one enemy at a time … but this is human psychology as well — the friend of my enemy is my enemy,” says Soharwardy, who is the founder of an anti-extremism group called Muslims Against Terrorism.

“This is definitely an opportunist approach … Right now they’re fighting against LGBT, then tomorrow they will fight against Islam, then tomorrow they will fight against the Jews, and so on.”

Emon, with the Institute of Islamic Studies, says the Navigating Differences letter and recent protests reflect how conservative Muslims are attempting to come to terms with the idea that their traditional beliefs may clash with the values of the same pluralistic society that granted them the freedom to hold those views without scrutiny — until now.

“For as long as we have had a heteronormative society, and LGBTQ were on the margin, one could hold the more conservative views and not have to account for the harm that they might cause, to a neighbour, to a schoolmate,” he says.

“And I think the real hard question that nobody is asking is how do we hold views that are antagonistic to each other — and own the harm that comes from it — without feeling denigrated or having our views denigrated? I’m not sure that’s possible.”

SAIMA JAMAL