His teachings re: stoning gay people are used at a Boston mosque. For some reason, he HASN’T gotten a letter from Menino
Menino’s Mosque wasn’t just built with a $1.8 million donation. The Islamic Society of Boston had to build and run it. And one of the people they turned to for fundraising help, and whose teachings they have handed out to Boston-area Muslims, Yusuf Abdullah al-Qaradawi, a prominent Islamic cleric.
You’ve probably never heard of him, but he’s considered to be a “progressive” imam—perhaps because he was the first prominent cleric to call for women to become suicide bombers, too (like the woman who just blew up a bus full of Jews in Bulgaria).
As the Weekly Standard reported when the mosque was being built, the ISB has had more recent (and repeated) contact with other unpleasant characters. Take Yusuf Abdullah al-Qaradawi.
Al-Qaradawi may or may not have served as a member of the Board of Trustees for the ISB. His name has appeared on relevant IRS forms as one of the Society’s seven trustees. But the ISB insists that he was listed because of a clerical oversight; they maintain that IRS documents notwithstanding, he was not actually a trustee.
The ISB does not dispute the fact that they have repeatedly used al-Qaradawi as a tool to raise funds for the Boston mosque, printing a brochure that highlighted al-Qaradawi’s enthusiastic support of the mosque and playing a videotaped message of support from him at a 2002 gathering
He’s a known terror supporter, and the ISB has never denied their involvement with, or support of, this man. Mayor Menino and anyone else paying attention knew all about it at the time.
But now that Mayor Menino has launched his own jihad against the “thought crime” of supporting traditional marriage, perhaps he should take another look at the teaching coming out of the mosque he helped build in Boston:
Here’s al-Qaradawi on homosexuality:
[A homosexual should be given] the same punishment as any sexual pervert – the same as the fornicator…The schools of thought disagree about the punishment. Some say they should be punished like fornicators, and then we distinguish between married and unmarried men, and between married and unmarried women. Some say both should be punished the same way. Some say we should throw them from a high place, like God did with the people of Sodom. Some say we should burn them, and so on. There is disagreement.
And some of them — differences [of opinion, so] it is possible for us to choose from them in our era what is most appropriate, and what is lightest, recognising how widespread the tribulation is: because tribulations and sins being widespread is something in Islamic legal theory that causes things to be lightened. The important thing is to consider/treat this act as a crime.
Al-Qaradawi believes that homosexuality should be punishable by death.[92] In his online site, Al-Qaradawi says, "it should be clear that this man committed two heinous crimes: 1) homosexuality, and 2) murder. Each crime is sufficient to warrant death penalty. In addition, this man has severed ties of kinship by seducing and killing his nephew." (what man?)
On 5 June 2006, on the Al Jazeera program Sharia and Life, al-Qaradawi (a regular on the program) reiterated orthodox views on homosexuality.[93] When asked about the punishment for people who "practise liwaat (sodomy) or sihaaq (lesbian activity)", al-Qaradawi replied: "The same punishment as any sexual pervert – the same as the adulterer." (MEMRI translation).[94] The punishment for adultery is stoning.[92]
So which one are YOU for, Mayor Menino? Burning the homosexuals, or just stoning them? And I wonder which version will be preached at Friday prayers this week in Roxbury?
If I had to send an angry, outraged letter to either Chick-Fil-A (we don’t support gay marriage) or the Islamic Society of Boston (we support stoning gay people), I think I’d make a different choice than Mayor Menino did.
Radio talk show host, columnist for the Boston Herald, stand-up comic and former GOP political consultant.