Preferably, we would see these discussions within major Muslim countries such as Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, Egypt, and Malaysia. What we need is a sustained course of community-wide debates among all Muslims, and not just on the Internet.
The decline of turbaned clerical authority among Muslims worldwide does not amount to the rise of authority among the self-styled US Muslim “celebrities” with a sleek PR agent and a Madison Avenue hairdo. These two sides, self-appointed “leaders” and “celebrities”, are both out-to-lunch and have no business issuing such fatwas beyond their own singular opinion on the matter and speak for nothing and no one beyond themselves. Inside Story Americas – A major victory for gay equality?Īt the forefront of these two extreme positions, we see a band of clean-shaven yuppie US Muslims eager to appease their White-American constituency issuing their “fatwa”, as it were, encouraging Muslims to embrace the Supreme Court decision, while most their bearded and turbaned counterparts on the opposite side of the isle issue dissenting fatwas against such reconciliations.
