PROFESSIONS IN ETHICAL FOCUS AN ANTHOLOGY 2 zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVU nd edition zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLK EDITED BY Fritz Althoff, Jonathan Milgrim, and Anand J. Vaidya broadview press -53 - SHOULD EDUCATORS ACCOMMODATE INTOLERANCE? zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPO M ark H alstead / H om o sex u ality, an d th e Islam ic C ase zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcb Michael S.zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHG Merry ... THOUGH NOT A MUSLIM HIMSELF, MARK Halstead has eloquently articulated the moral views of Muslims for a quarter of a century. In general, Halstead has attempted to elaborate the Muslim concern for nurturing commitment to a shared way of life; more particularly, he has endeavoured to demonstrate various ways in which the democratic aims of liberals-especially as they pertain to education-must take account of the moral claims of Muslims living in Western societies. The ideological interface between Muslims and liberal educators undoubtedly is strained in the realm of sex education, and perhaps on no topic more so than homosexuality. Halstead argues that schools should not try to undermine the faith of Muslims, who object to teaching homosexuality as an 'acceptable alternative lifestyle'. Rather, insofar as schools concern themselves with private values, they should adopt a neutral stance, purveying information about different values but not condoning one to the exclusion of the other (1999b, p. 276). Halstead begins by positing two basic claims. First, the increasing acceptance of homosexuality in Western culture, he tells us, is due to certain philosophical assumptions. These assumptions buttress the values of liberal education and they include the unflinching support of individual freedom, equality of respect, tolerance, and a celebration of diversity. Second, Halstead insists that not all people who reject homosexuality are 'homophobic'; they simply may disagree in principle with a) an acknowledgement of a homosexual orientation, orb) 'acts' that one might associate with homosexuality. While there are several groups one might use to represent these principled objections, Halstead chooses Muslims to stand opposite the 'gay agenda', i.e., the view that sex educators ought to present homosexuality as an acceptable lifestyle. Halstead briefly acknowledges a diversity of opinion within the homosexual community, but proceeds with a portrayal of a 'gay agenda' based on what he believes are 'the beliefs and values which unite at least the majority of western homosexuals' (Halstead & Lewicka, 1998, p. 51) .... [Halstead] follows the logic of the cultural coherence model. The basic concern behind cultural coherence is the emotional and social stability of the child whose parents may adhere to a set of cultural and religious values lacking endorsement by the society in which they live. While cultural coherence may apply to all families, including those whose values receive widespread approval, it is especially relevant to minority communities, whose specific values and beliefs are more likely to be ignored or even forbidden in certain cultural contexts. Where education is concerned, cultural coherence theory assumes that a learn ing environment culturally (and/or religiously) consonant with the parents is more likely to produce healthy learn ing outcomes for young children and is more likely to foster a firmer sense of self. Implicitly assumed in cultural coherence theory is that parents have the fundamental right to raise their children according to their customs, beliefs and values. Th e second stage to Halstead's pedagogy involves the aim of enabling 'different communities with different values and ways of understanding the world to live together in harmony and to enable each in their different ways to contribute to the well-being of the broader society' (Halstead & Lewicka, 1998, p. 62). Halstead recognizes that-it is in M uslim children's best interest to be knowledgeable about certain Western attitudes toward homosexuality if they are to cultivate appropriate responses to it .... ... In Halstead's own words, [Elven if certain beliefs do not make sense from one's own cultural perspective, one should try to see them through the eyes of others, and this involves learn ing about the underlying values of others so that one can understand how certain beliefs fit into their world view. (1999a, pp. 135-136) is because he does not question the widely held view that homosexuality is morally wrong from an 'Islamic point of view'. Halstead unequivocally asserts that Muslims 'think in terms of acts, not inclinations' (Halstead & Lewicka, 1998, p.58), thereby premising his claim that Muslims cannot conceive of a homosexual 'orientation' owing to its fundamental 'incoherence' within an Islamic frame of reference. Not only is a sexual orientation inconceivable, we are told that Islam also cannot abide homosexual deeds .... [T]he upshot of Halstead's constructed antagonism suggests that a) Muslims share a 'coherent and unified worldview', including a unanimous set of beliefs about homosexuality; and b) if Muslims are to receive sensitive education concerning homosexuality it ought to be presented as controversial, as something that 'some people believe'. However, before this education takes place, Muslim children must 'have been adequately initiated into the beliefs and values of their own community during primary socialisation' (Halstead & Lewicka, 1998, p. 62). Finally, c) Halstead's stark opposition presumes there to be some concerted and unified homosexual front attempting to squeeze out the hegemonic heterosexual norm. In what follows, I will argue against Halstead's odd defence" of an Islamic understanding of homosexuality and I will show three things: zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA Halstead recognizes that his proposals are 1. Halstead endorses a questionable a tall order. He knows, for instance, that there is understanding of Islam that considers likely to be tension if a 'gay agenda' can seek to homosexuality to be forbidden; promote homosexuality as an altern ative expres2. He neglects gay and lesbian Muslims who are sion of one's sexual identity when conservative particularly vulnerable to the unrepentant M uslims do not espouse beliefs capable of accomhostilities of their own communities; modating such views .... [He] genuinely hopes that 3. He delimits the range of options available to sensitive teaching about homosexuality will lead sex educators in such a way as to discourage M uslim students to be 'better informed and more genuine encounters between homosexuals sympathetic to other people's positions and may and Muslims. zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDC help them to clarify their own values and attitudes'. Nevertheless, throughout Halstead's argument DISCUSSION there is the implicit assumption that M uslims zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA cannot and perhaps even should not be encouraged ... [Halstead] ignores the unwarrantable conclusion to think about homosexuality empathically. This that sexual orientation is supposed to follow from MERRY j SHOULD EDUCATORS ACCOMMODATE INTOLERANCE? j 335 one's being born a man or a woman. Halstead practised. Halstead admits to the fact (Halstead & claims that in Islam sexual identity is ultimately Reiss, 2003, p. 101), though he unfailingly assumes not a matter of being either heterosexual or homothe most orthodox Islamic view when he refers to sexual. The key distinction, he tells us, is between these occurrences as 'lapses' and 'deviations'," One anticipates, then, Halstead's sympathy with parents what is permitted (halal) zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA and forbidden (haram). Halstead expands on this: Islam teaches that if people have sinful desires they should keep them to themselves and control them in order to avoid doing what God has forbidden. It may, for example, be quite natural for anyone to find handsome boys attractive (and indeed the Qur'an promises that in paradise the faithful will be attended by young men like pearls: Sura 56:37 and Sura 76:19), but if this attraction becomes sexual desire it must be resisted. (Halstead & Lewicka, 1998, p. 59) Because Halstead limits his discussion to a (particular) religious framework, he does not flesh out the cultural underpinnings of homophobia, nor does he acknowledge the relatively recent beginnings of widespread anti-homosexual attitudes within Islam. Rather he chooses to focus on what he calls 'the religious perspective', setting in terminal opposition Islam, as a religion, against homosexuality. In concluding that the Islamic 'worldview' cannot admit of any notion of 'orientation' but can only conceive of 'acts', Halstead permits conservative Muslim scholars to remain stubbornly indolent where there is room for Islam to expand its conception with ever-increasing knowledge and experience .... When it comes to the germane religious sources, Judaism, Christianity and Islam share many of the same narratives. Still, it is discomfiting that Halstead covers the obligatory exegesis of the Sodom and Gomorrah story without referencing alternate interpretations," welcomed by many Muslims, Jews, and Christians, which suggest that the 'sin' of Sodom is not homosexuality but inhospitality (see Boswell, 1980, pp. 91-99), a grave offence in Near Eastern cultures .... Islam has come to inhabit many cultural spaces wherein homosexuality is commonly 336 I who wish to withdraw their children from sex education classes whose content may conflict with the values of the home, but he wisely acknowledges the tremendous burden such a choice invites for parents who must take up this daunting responsibility. Halstead also knows that no matter how strictly Muslim parents attempt to regulate their children's knowledge of sexuality, the formidable influences of popular culture, purveyed through various media and the hidden curriculum5zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfe (not excluding children taken out of the state school system and placed in comprehensive religious schools) will exert considerable influence on a child's thinking. He also knows that simplistic moralizing and Islamic prohibitions, to which many immigrant Muslim children are exposed in after-school and weekend Qur'änic classes, will not suffice to counter these influences, nor will they be likely to appeal to the Muslim child without more culturally-sensitive lessons that take account of non-Muslim societies. Nevertheless, concerning homosexuality as a 'morally acceptable way of life', Halstead defends the right of conservative religious groups, in particular Muslims, to object to 'the gay and lesbian perspective'.... Because of the austere prohibitions against homosexuality in Islamic teaching, gay and lesbian Muslims must choose to live an irreconcilable double identity, repress or deny their homosexual feelings, or turn their back on Islam in order to be true to themselves .... Halstead's insistence that Muslims learn about homosexuality as a controversial subject is problematic for three reasons: first, by merely learning 'about' different opinions and experiences with no effort to foster empathy (i.e., the ability to 'take on' or profoundly relate to another's situation) and mutual respect, one can do little more than provide exposure to another point of view without cultivating respect for persons qua persons. Second, this UNIT 7: PROFESSIONALISM, DIVERSITY, AND PLURALISM approach does little to alleviate the stigmatization ... Halstead is correct to cast aside racist beliefs as unworthy of respect, but why does he stop and fear that attend M uslim youth who identify as there? The fact that racist beliefs are abhorrent and gay or lesbian but are unable to be public about it unworthy of respect while homophobic attitudes because that view is presented only as an option zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCB ascribed to a religion deserve our respect seems for others .... Muslim children might learn to show astonishingly incongruent. [Also.] Halstead's · sympathy toward homosexuals, but Halstead does attempts to 'preserve Muslim values intact within not address the needs of gay and lesbian Muslim youth who may find themselves 'trapped' by highly the Muslim community' unwittingly sanction internal intolerance as well, because some of these intolerant attitudes towards homosexuality within 'values" often include militant bigotry toward their own communities. homosexuals, and this will inevitably include Third, Halstead 's characterization of homomany Muslims. sexuality as an 'abomination' and deserving of Finally, tensions persist between liberalism condemnation according to the 'Muslim worldview' and illiberal communities. 'Clearly', Halstead not only foists a monolithic reading of homosexcomments, 'the state cannot both claim to weluality onto Islam, but it also delimits the range of come diversity and at the same time try to ensure topics morally acceptable to Muslims .... [What is] that its non-liberal citizens adopt liberal values' essential is that we consider the experiences of gay (1999a, p. 133). Halstead assumes here that diversity and lesbian people and consider why it is that his and the adoption of liberal values are somehow or her religion would appear to condemn a sexual incompatible. Yet this would only be true if the identity so many people possess, including many 6 state welcomed all kinds of diversity, including within the Muslim world.zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA ... those that systematically interfere with the free... [C]onsidering that Halstead does recognize dom of others to pursue life and liberty. We know that Muslim children are raised according to views this not to be the case; the state does not sanction uncompromisingly intolerant toward homosexunfettered diversity. Still, there is another way in uality, one would hope to find him a little more which Halstead, mistakenly, understands liberal sceptical of the traditions that maintain and justify values to be neutral. Halstead claims that a liberal anti-homosexual attitudes .... Ataullah Siddiqui education stresses equality of respect and refuses asserts that many Muslim scholars trained in 'to side with any contestable conception of the good' madrassahs and seminaries are 'out of touch with developments in the field of science, technol(1999a, p. 132). I concur with Halstead that in one sense a neutral stance is necessary in order to teach ogy and even other areas of thought and society' controversial subject matter. Therefore, one ought (Siddiqui, 1997, p. 426). This seems a more plausible to encourage students to think from multiple perexplanation for 'incoherence' from an Islamic view spectives about stem cell research, gun control, and than any argument suggesting there not to be an euthanasia but not condone or promote any parimplicit understanding of what is meant bya particular take on this subject matter. Similarly, one ticular sexual orientation .... ought to be just as objective concerning religious [Halstead] unequivocally states: belief as one would be about homosexuality. Not only is there widespread ignorance about religions [A] pluralist democratic society has a duty to among non-religious people, but also it is unsurrespect and take account of the beliefs and valprising that gay and lesbian groups can be equally ues of minority groups within it except where, as in the case of racist beliefs, for example, intolerant of conservative religious groups. As John those beliefs are in conflict with the fundaBeck says, 'moral offence is experienced on both mental principles on which the democratic sides' (1999, p. 125).8 society itself is based. (1997, p. 327) MERRY I SHOULD EDUCATORS ACCOMMODATE INTOLERANCE? I 337 Even so, in another sense one cannot be prejudice of homophobia.9zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONML ... Halstead does not neutral when entertaining all zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA points of view. A work out the tension wrought by an equality of respect for cultures with a concern for the equalliberal education worthy of its name simply can- not give equal time to views that tout superiority or monopolies on truth when they pertain to the basic virtues of tolerance and respect. Most liberals are also famously interested in pursuing justice and fairness, hardly a neutral position. Halstead is correct, therefore, to stress that an education for democratic citizenship necessarily entails 'the rejection of racism, prejudice, and discrimination as an affront to individual dignity' (Halstead, 2003, p. 289; cf. Halstead & Reiss, 2003, p. 160). Where Halstead's view becomes problematic is in his insistence that persons' primary identities, i.e., their religious and cultural 'commitments', are more constitutive of who they are than any identity derived from citizenship (2003, p. 280) if and when these primary identities become the bane of all that stands in the way of a liberal education .... [Stephen Macedo believes that] neutrality is a clever ruse to which no one, including liberals, can afford to acquiesce. He adds: Liberal education should not stand for a neutral educational environment, one that is 'nonjudgmental' with respect to the choices people make or to the forms of good and valuable lives: to the contrary, we want children to learn that there are better and worse ways to using their freedom. What is crucial from a liberal standpoint is that no one educational authority should totally dominate; that children acquire a measure of distance on all claims to truth in order to be able to think critically about our inclusive political ideals and detect conflicts between those inclusive ideals and their more particular moral and religious convictions. (Macedo, 2000, p. 238) Macedo's point is important and Halstead would doubtless agree. Yet Halstead never actually says that Muslims ought to attain a critical distance from their beliefs or repudiate the (cultural) 338 / UNIT 7: ity of respect for persons. He seems to favour the former when he says, for instance, that the failure to pass on the 'beliefs and customs' of the community to the next generation has 'every appearance of the wilful self-destruction of the community' (1995a, p. 39). Though I recognize the cultural embeddedness of all persons, I am frankly more concerned with the latter and see no need to be uncritical about one's inherited culture .... zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcb EDUCATIONAL CHALLENGES I concur with Halstead that in a pluralist society there will be many issues on which reasonable persons can and will respectfully disagree. I would also endorse Halstead's view that it is the responsibility of the common school to avoid what he calls a 'potentially oppressive situation where children are expected to accept values in school [that] are directly in conflict with their own values or those of their family' (Halstead, 1999a, p. 132). Yet to claim, as Halstead does, that the most we can hope for is 'an enlightened live-and-let-live' is to despair of fostering more than mere tolerance. It also avoids any responsibility to confront crass prejudices and hatred. Beck writes, Irrational prejudice against [homosexuals] should be shown to be irrational; intimidation of such minorities should be met with firm but rational sanctions and the reasons why their rights to self-expression and self-actualization ought to be upheld should be explained. (Beck, 1999, p. 127) Furthermore, 'an enlightened live-and-let-live' falls far short of the encounter I am suggesting will be conducive to reciprocity and mutual respect. This would be an encounter where persons espousing different points of view and having different experiences can learn from one another in an atmosphere of trust and respect. Religious persons PROFESSIONALISM, DIVERSITY, AND PLURALISM NOTES opposed to homosexuality need to encounter gay and lesbian students in an atmosphere of mutual 1 In the principal article this paper will reference, trust and respect, just as gay and lesbian students Halstead co-authors with Katarzyna Lewicka, but need to encounter devout religious persons who I shall speak only to Halstead in this paper, a's his do not approve of their sexual identification." ... work spans more than twenty years, and he alone ... Hearing from informed M uslim students responds to one of the critics of the article he who believe" that heterosexual relations are only co-authored with Lewicka. permissible within marriage will do at least three 2 By 'defence', I do not mean that he agrees with it things: a) it will force children with different personally, but that he does very little if anything opinions to reflect upon the reasons why they disagree; b) it will oblige M uslim (and other religious) to challenge the view. 3 Halstead considers several interpretations in children to provide reasons for holding the views Values in sex education (Halstead & Reiss, 2003), on sexuality that they do; and c) finally, taking this approach will engender an atmosphere of but only in reference to Christianity. 4 Halstead explains that the executions of Iranian inclusion, tolerance, and mutual respect by taking 12 homosexuals during the Islamic Revolution account of different perspectives. ... zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLK between 1979-1984 probably had more to do with 'an attack on western decadence and the public CONCLUSION transgression of morality than with homosexuality In this article, I have challenged three aspects of per se' (Halstead & Lewicka, 1998, p. 59). Halstead's opposition of homosexuality to Islam. s The hidden curriculum, for my purposes here, First, I have shown that he has not properly taken will refer to the implicit messages conveyed into consideration the problems associated with to schoolchildren through the attitudes and homophobic prejudice by leaving unchallenged actions of school staff, peers, and materials used the fundamentalist views of some Muslims. in classrooms. Many Muslims are seeking for new ways, as 6 Halstead correctly notes that the number of have Jews and Christians with their own scriphomosexuals in Britain is roughly equivalent to tures, for understanding passages in the hadith zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA the number of Roman Catholics, i.e., about 6% of and the Qur'än that seem to reject homosexuthe population, though this figure only reflects ality. Halstead ignores the problems associated those who exclusively identify as homosexuals. See with narrow, decontextualized interpretations. Halstead & Reiss (2003, p.160). Secondly Halstead does not address the problem 7 In many places Halstead refers to 'core Islamic values', 'fundamental beliefs and values' and of gay and lesbian Muslims who suffer shame and rejection from within their own communities 'distinctive beliefs and values'. See, for example, because of these interpretations. In some cases, Halstead (1995a, p. 27; 2003, pp. 283, 292). there is even fear of death. Halstead does not 8 The reasons for this usually have to do with the successfully reconcile his interests in children's malicious attitudes towards homosexuality among autonomy and his defence of Islam's proscriptive many conservative religious groups. One could disposition toward homosexuality. Finally, I have surmise gays and lesbians to be rather indifferent shown that Halstead's approach to teaching about to these religious groups if these groups were not homosexuality is too limiting and permits groups so wont to cast scorn on homosexuals. to exercise a tremendous power over Muslim 9 He does say that education for democratic young people by uncritically initiating children citizenship would require that children be taught into a highly intolerant religious value system that 'homophobic bullying is always wrong, (Halstead & Lewicka, 1998, p. 61) .... an affront to individual dignity, and a failure MERRY zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA I SHOULD EDUCATORS ACCOMMODATE INTOLERANCE? I 339 to respect fu ndam ental rights and freedom s' (H alstead, 2003, p.292; em phasis m ine). Halstead, J.M. (1999a) Teaching about homosexuality: zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA a response to John Beck, Cambridge Journal of I choose 'identification' over 'lifestyle' or Education, 29(1), 131-136. 'preference' because the latter imply far more Halstead, J.M. (1999b) Moral education in family life: zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA choice in the matter than most people attest to visthe effects of diversity, Journal of Moral Education, à-vis their sexuality. 28(3), 265-281. 11 Of course, not all Muslim children believe this. Halstead, J.M. (2003) Schooling and cultural 12 I am aware that this last point is controversial. It maintenance for religious minorities in the is very possible that such encounters will have the liberal state, in: K. McDonough & W. Feinberg opposite effect. zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA (Eds) Citizenship and education in liberaldemocratic societies (Oxford, Oxford University REFERENCES Press), 273-295. 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